Having last awed the crowd as one of the highlights of 2015’s Mutations Festival, the lupine chanteuse Chelsea Wolfe returns to perform at The Haunt, in quite possibly one of the most effective pairings of venue name and artist resonance.

She was then touring her fifth album ‘Abyss’, which further secured her ascension from underground via bleak soundtrack guest spotting (Game of Thones trailers and a Walking Dead spin-off) and Converge/Neurosis collaborations, to a greyscale pin up for the Sad Girl aesthetic. Think Lana Del Rey channelling Sylvia Plath, backed by Burzum.

Wolfe refuses to be restricted by genre in this way; her output thus far containing elements of folk, ambient, black metal, a shimmering of synth and deluge of drone distortions. It is easy to become overwhelmed by and difficult to tear away from the sense of dread imbued in the band’s densely layered sounds, much like the sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming Wolfe has described experiencing. Oneirology has been a core influence of her subject matter. Stark, primal drumming, however, will keep the audience grounded and hence stop you from being completely carried away by the dreamy, echoic vocals.

The perfect antidote to all this springtime sunshine and egg-shaped whimsy we’ve been enjoying lately, then. Go along and show some feral love.

Support comes from doomgazing stoner three piece, True Widow.

The Haunt, Wednesday 19th April 2017

Words by Karen McDermott
Photo by Kristin Cofer