CHELSEA WOLFE – Cold
Chelsea Wolfe has announced her ninth studio album, The Dark, out August 21 via Loma Vista Recordings (physical formats follow September 18), and shared its opening track and lead single, “Cold”. It’s the proper follow-up to Death Is Not The End / The Dark (W26), the double single that first previewed the record with the same trick both songs pulled: start hushed, end somewhere much heavier.
“Cold” works a version of that same dynamic through a folkier lens: quiet acoustic guitar and piano build slowly under Wolfe’s voice before brushed drums and a fuller arrangement take over by the end. Lyrically, it’s a song about letting go of a relationship and stepping into something unfamiliar, sung with the kind of plainness that doesn’t need embellishment. The video, directed by Magdalena Wosinska, follows Wolfe and a small group through a candlelit séance, which tracks with an album built around confronting what scares you.
The Dark was written and produced with longtime collaborator Ben Chisholm and new co-writer Jennifer Decilveo, who also plays piano across the record. The ten-track album brings in a heavyweight list of guests: Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails, session drummer Matt Chamberlain, Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens of the Stone Age, Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint, and Justin Meldal-Johnsen of Nine Inch Nails and St. Vincent. Wolfe describes the album as a matter of taking responsibility rather than assigning blame: “I’m not pointing the finger at anyone. I’m taking responsibility.” It’s a plainer statement than the usual press framing around a breakup record, and it’s a good sign for how directly the album handles it.
It’s a patient, unshowy way to open a record this loaded with guests, and that restraint is what makes me want to hear the rest of it.
Tour Dates:
UK
- Aug. 18 / London, UK / The Dome
- Aug. 20 / Bristol, UK / ArcTanGent Festival
North America (with Jonathan Hultén)
- Sep. 16 / San Francisco, CA / Curran Theatre
- Sep. 18 / Seattle, WA / The Moore Theatre
- Sep. 19 / Salem, OR / Elsinore Theatre
- Sep. 20 / Portland, OR / Roseland Theater
- Sep. 22 / Salt Lake City, UT / The Union Event Center
- Sep. 24 / Denver, CO / Paramount Theatre
- Sep. 25 / Lawrence, KS / Liberty Hall
- Sep. 26 / St. Paul, MN / The Fitzgerald Theater
- Sep. 28 / Chicago, IL / The Riviera Theatre
- Sep. 29 / Columbus, OH / The Bluestone
- Sep. 30 / Detroit, MI / Masonic Jack White Theatre
- Oct. 5 / Boston, MA / Boch Center Shubert Theatre
- Oct. 6 / New York, NY / The Town Hall
- Oct. 8 / Munhall, PA / Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall
- Oct. 9 / Glenside, PA / Keswick Theatre
- Oct. 10 / Washington, DC / Sixth & I
- Oct. 12 / Asheville, NC / The Orange Peel
- Oct. 13 / Atlanta, GA / Buckhead Theatre
- Oct. 14 / Nashville, TN / Marathon Music Works
- Oct. 16 / Dallas, TX / Texas Theatre
- Oct. 17 / Austin, TX / Emo’s
- Oct. 20 / Tucson, AZ / Rialto Theatre
- Oct. 21 / El Cajon, CA / The Magnolia
- Oct. 23 / Los Angeles, CA / The Orpheum Theatre
Europe (with A.A. Williams)
- Nov. 21 / Utrecht, Netherlands / TivoliVredenburg
- Nov. 23 / Berlin, Germany / Admiralspalast
- Nov. 24 / Hamburg, Germany / Große Freiheit 36
- Nov. 25 / Copenhagen, Denmark / Vega
- Nov. 27 / Oslo, Norway / Betong
- Nov. 28 / Stockholm, Sweden / Vasateatern
- Nov. 30 / Tallinn, Estonia / Helitehas
- Dec. 2 / Vilnius, Lithuania / LOFTAS
- Dec. 3 / Warsaw, Poland / Progresja
- Dec. 5 / Prague, Czechia / ARCHA
- Dec. 6 / Vienna, Austria / Budocenter
- Dec. 7 / Budapest, Hungary / Akvárium Klub
- Dec. 9 / Mannheim, Germany / Capitol
- Dec. 11 / Fribourg, Switzerland / Fri-Son
- Dec. 12 / Milan, Italy / Live Club
- Dec. 13 / Munich, Germany / Isarphilharmonie
- Dec. 15 / Antwerp, Belgium / Trix
- Dec. 16 / Paris, France / Casino de Paris
- Dec. 19 / Athens, Greece / FLOYD
