Chelsea Wolfe has announced her ninth album, The Dark, and says it was shaped by a difficult period of personal change, according to NME. The Californian artist also released the project’s first single, “Cold.”
In her interview with NME, Wolfe said the album’s sound came into focus while she worked with producer Jennifer Decilveo and longtime collaborator Ben Chisholm. She said Decilveo helped her decide to return to songs built around acoustic guitar, piano and vocals before expanding them into fuller arrangements.
Wolfe said she wanted the record to explore themes of life, death and “liminal” in-between moments, including the feeling of letting go of something or someone. She pointed to “Death Is Not The End” as an example of that dynamic shift, moving from a delicate opening into a bigger, more atmospheric section.
She also said the album grew from a “dark night of the soul” period in her early 40s, when she realized she had been self-abandoning and putting other people’s needs ahead of her own. Wolfe said that realization led her to confront difficult situations and let go of relationships and parts of herself that no longer fit.
