Review: Joshua Hobbins
Some artists chase reinvention. Chelsea Wolfe simply keeps finding new ways to haunt you.
Across her career she’s wandered through doom, folk, industrial and electronic music without ever sounding like she’s abandoning one world for another. The Dark doesn’t feel like a departure either. Instead, it pulls those threads together into something that feels strangely accessible while still carrying that unmistakable Chelsea Wolfe weight. If “gloom pop” wasn’t already a genre, this album makes a convincing case for it.
Working with new co-writer Jennifer Decilveo alongside longtime collaborator Ben Chisholm, Wolfe takes a more spacious approach across the album’s ten tracks. Rather than burying her voice beneath walls of distortion and dense instrumentation, The Dark frequently gives it room to breathe. That restraint doesn’t make the record any less heavy. If anything, the empty spaces make its darker moments hit harder.
And there is some serious talent helping build that world. Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails, Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens of the Stone Age, Matt Chamberlain, Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint and Justin Meldal-Johnsen all contribute to the record. Despite that impressive list, The Dark never feels like an album built around guest appearances. Everything remains firmly inside Wolfe’s world.
Opener Cold eases you in with a dark country sway that’s almost sultry before a beautiful pre-chorus shift briefly lets a little light creep through. It’s subtle, but it’s enough to make the return to the shadows hit even harder.
Seethe is where the album really grabs hold. The opening bass has this incredible grit that immediately builds an ominous atmosphere before slipping into a quasi-goth dance beat. The production here is exceptional. The bass deliberately sits behind the drums during the verses before pushing back to the front in the chorus, making every return feel enormous without ever sounding overproduced.
Humours channels that minimalist Radiohead-esque restraint, letting shimmering highs lift the chorus before everything falls away again. It’s a recurring trick throughout the record. Wolfe never rushes these songs. She lets them breathe, trusting the space between notes as much as the notes themselves.
By Swallower, that dark pop DNA becomes impossible to ignore, while Halo strips everything back into something genuinely beautiful. It’s one of those songs that instantly makes you think about how devastating it’ll be in a live setting.
The title track feels like the album’s centrepiece. It’s haunting, but in the comforting way a ghost story keeps pulling you back for another listen. The closing section leans fully into that gloom pop atmosphere and somehow leaves you wanting another minute instead of overstaying its welcome.
Turn the Key twists doom through trip-hop and trap influences without sounding forced, while I’m Not There doubles down on what might be my favourite accidental discovery on this record: doom country. Apparently that’s a genre now, and I’m completely on board.
Then comes Death Is Not The End, arguably the emotional peak of the album. It feels intimate and soulful, with Wolfe’s whispery vocal sitting so close in the mix it feels like you’re eavesdropping on a secret meeting deep in the forest. The rawness of the drums keeps everything grounded, making its honesty land even harder.
Closing track Dancer in the Sky is simply stunning. It’s the kind of songwriting that’s evocative without ever becoming sentimental, closing the album on a note that lingers long after the final chord fades.
What makes The Dark work so well isn’t that it’s Chelsea Wolfe’s heaviest record. It isn’t. It’s that she understands tension better than almost anyone else making dark music today. Whether she’s leaning into doom, country, trip-hop or spectral pop, every choice serves the atmosphere first.
Some records demand your attention. The Dark earns it by quietly pulling you back, again and again, until you realise you’ve been living inside its world far longer than you intended.
Stream/pre-order The Dark here: https://i.
