{"id":4873,"date":"2022-11-28T12:07:47","date_gmt":"2022-11-28T18:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/?p=4873"},"modified":"2023-03-07T19:14:02","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T01:14:02","slug":"album-review-weyes-blood-and-in-the-darkness-hearts-aglow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/2022\/11\/28\/album-review-weyes-blood-and-in-the-darkness-hearts-aglow\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Weyes Blood – And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow <\/em>is Natalie Mering of Weyes Blood\u2019s second album in the trilogy that may well become a generational trinity. Its monumental predecessor, Titanic Rising<\/em>, <\/em>saw Mering beg and plead for some stable ground beneath her feet. With her cries answered only by the feedback of despondent tides, Mering swam through shipwrecks and salvaged memories just to look at the corrosion that had spread all over her desires. On In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, <\/em>Mering can no longer indulge in the past, and the future is no refuge either. The second act of this apocalyptic trilogy is birthed as Mering clings onto a romantic desperation to guide the way through a moonless night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

String arrangements reminiscent of \u201cA Lot\u2019s Gonna Change\u201d give rise to a stairway of piano notes on the intro track. Mering\u2019s glowing voice shines light as we approach. As if reaching her hand out through the music, she sets the scene for Hearts Aglow<\/em> with a bittersweet reminder that every one of us gets lost in the current. Her golden chants proclaim \u201cIt\u2019s Not Just me, It\u2019s Everybody\u201d repeatedly, celebrating a revelation that she no longer needs to muzzle the voice of her pain. \u201cChildren of the Empire\u201d throws the listener into a music hall located in the eye of a hurricane. She taps into the beauty of baroque instrumentation – I can feel the aliveness of each instrument. Pianos, harpsichords, and bells jump around on top of the \u201coooh\u2019s\u201d and \u201caaahs\u201d in the background. Even a xylophone comes in to do his always-pleasant dance (Yes I will anthropomorphize an instrument, this is the Weyes Blood baroque effect). She laments the blood on the hands of herself and other \u201cchildren\u201d of a globalized era: the time when it is near-impossible to avoid burning oil extracted through invasions and single-use plastics that will never decay. Mering acknowledges that we will pay for our sins while gazing into this cosmic clutter. However, she reminds us that we \u201cdon\u2019t have time to be afraid.\u201d This party at the end of our heyday is soundtracked with grim coloring: \u201cThey say the worst is done, but I think it’s only just begun.\u201d She continues to frolic beneath nihilistic rain on \u201cHearts Aglow,\u201d crooning lines like \u201cThe whole world is crumbling; Oh, baby, let’s dance in the sand.\u201d During these moments of bliss, the apocalypse is merely a blip on Mering\u2019s radar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The psychedelic folk tale, \u201cGrapevine,\u201d is a post-breakup rumination centered around Southern California\u2019s Interstate 5. The soft hums of her guitar mystify the highway – she mythologizes the landscape as a path where one can curve around curves until they\u2019ve escaped the relentless drone of time. It all leads to the nauseating realization that she and a past lover are now \u201cjust two cars passing by on the grapevine.\u201d The song and the memory drive us off to become one with a dark blue horizon. In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow<\/em> treats earthly forms as a foothill to wander up until we’ve entered the romanticized territory of mythos and fables. Mering\u2019s voice can carry the listener away to these spaces, sweeping them up to fly to a world drenched in moonlit mystique. She\u2019s got vocal prowess dripping with so much beauty that it could compel tears from a thirteen-year-old football player who has been conditioned to think that boys shouldn\u2019t cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The escape that Weyes Blood seeks on the \u201cGrapevine\u201d has her sunk to her knees on \u201cGod Turn me Into a Flower.\u201d She prays to morph into some embodiment of serenity – to be grounded and rooted. Birds chirp and Mother Nature communicates through synths similar to a language explored in Mort Garson\u2019s Plantasia.<\/em> Slowly, nature\u2019s sounds take over and what\u2019s human falls away, leaving in its wake buds that bloom to reach for the sun. The flowery ego-death that Mering prays for is a desire that can\u2019t last. Resurrection fueled by blind hope arrives on \u201cHearts Aglow,\u201d an endearing moment in which Mering shoots through the smog above to reach an unclogged sky. As she drifts in and out of white clouds, her voice is followed by harmonies of the heavens; Phil Spector\u2019s ghostly fingerprints can be seen on the Walls of Sound that come from behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Courtesy of Weyes Blood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mering uses instrumental segments such as \u201cAnd in the Darkness\u201d and \u201cIn Holy Flux\u201d as globs of gravity to pull the listener even deeper into the tide of the album. Sandwiched – a bit awkwardly – between these two is the carbonated \u201cTwin Flame.\u201d Psychedelic drum patterns flow up beneath to pop like bubbles in your ears. I\u2019d like to hear more of this weird style from Mering, the song makes me feel stranded in the cold and lightless Aphotic zone of the ocean. Hearts Aglow<\/em> is bookended with \u201cA Given Thing,\u201d slowing things down Tori Amos style. A solid knot on the tracklist, but it doesn\u2019t tie the project up as tight as she did on Titanic\u2019s <\/em>\u201cPicture Me Better.\u201d Most Hearts Aglow<\/em> songs are just a bit less strong than their sequential counterparts on Titanic Rising, <\/em>but this album leaves a golden wake behind regardless of any memory bias. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most remarkable musical trilogies are often forged in great wildfires, whether those troubles are societal or personal: Bowie\u2019s Berlin Trilogy<\/em>, The Cure\u2019s \u201cGothic\u201d Series<\/em>, Dylan\u2019s 14-Month Trilogy. <\/em>With a cocktail of microplastics and Teflon in our bodies and half a decade left on the Climate Clock, we continue to walk, even if our legs are fueled only by the foolish passion of our hearts. If earth ever goes gradient, this album and trilogy will be a picturesque elegy of the world as a car going downhill in neutral gear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Natalie Mering, also known as Weyes Blood – Courtesy of NPR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow is Natalie Mering of Weyes Blood\u2019s second album in the trilogy that may well become a generational trinity. Its monumental predecessor, Titanic Rising, saw Mering beg and plead for some stable ground beneath her feet. With her cries answered only by the feedback of despondent tides, Mering swam through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1545,"featured_media":4879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[155,175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-jacks-picks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/files\/2022\/11\/Screen-Shot-2022-11-28-at-10.57.06-AM.png?fit=1442%2C1444&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa7fJU-1gB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1545"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4873"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5042,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4873\/revisions\/5042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}