Album Review: Chelsea Wolfe- Pain is Beauty



Is this Goth?

This must be Goth. Not, like, manufactured Goth that I can procure at the nearest Hot Topic, but like, for real Goth in the modern age.

Her artist bio claims she is “drone-metal-art-folk,” but Chelsea Wolfe makes haunted, tormented, gloomy Goth rock. Her fourth studio LP, aptly titled Pain is Beauty, carries on the tradition of very early PJ Harvey—an unhinged female voice creating brash, down-tuned, dark music. It also is a step ahead of the British sister act 2:54, and their self-titled debut from last year—an album that tried for the very same thing but ultimately came up short.

Wolfe wears her influences on her sleeve—one can catch heavy Cure vibes from the quickly paced, ethereal pop of “The Warden.” Before that, “We Hit A Wall” is Wolfe doing her best impression of PJ Harvey—and actually, it’s the best PJ Harvey song you've heard in at least the last nine years.

The farther you go into Pain is Beauty, the larger the sound gets—things are just gigantic by the time you get to “Ancestors, the Ancients.”  As you continue Wolfe gets almost too spooky for her own good—too tormented, too haunted. On “They'll Clap When You're Gone,” her reverb soaked vocals are backed by dramatic arrangements, and it just becomes SO melodramatic.  

The sprawling 8 minute “The Waves Have Come” serves as a bit of a closing track, followed by an epilogue in the short, reflective “Lone.” “The Waves Have Come” is the kind of song that is specifically written to be at the end of your album—it just keeps growing in magnitude as it builds towards the conclusion.


Pain is Beauty is atmospheric to say the least. Currently it is 88 degrees and humid outside—hardly the kind of weather for such a gloomy album. I’m not sure, though, when the appropriate time to listen to Chelsea Wolfe is. She’s a talented singer, although it’s unfortunate that a song on here is called “We Hit a Wall.” It seems in poor taste almost to make this joke, but you could almost say the same thing about the record as a whole. By sticking to the whole spooky Goth rock thing, Wolfe really backs herself into a corner stylistically, and while there is a shift in tone from the start of the record, when compared to the end of the record—the entire thing has a kind of familiarity that it cannot escape. 

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