- Weyes Blood is the project of Natalie Mering, a producer and singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles. With three studio albums under her belt, one of which is 2016’s apocalyptic swan song A Front Row Seat To Earth, Mering has returned with her Sub Pop debut and fourth studio album Titanic Rising.
If you haven’t heard Weyes Blood’s releases before, it’s likely her voice has crept into some songs you’re familiar with: Mering is no stranger to the collaborative process. She’s released an EP with Ariel Pink as well as popping into liner notes on records with Father John Misty, Perfume Genius, Drugdealer and Mild High Club, to name just a few. Having had Titanic Rising in my ears this past week, (and being an enormous fan) it’s not hard to see why she is in such high demand.
With co-producer Jonathan Rado of Foxygen, Titanic Rising is Mering’s most sonically ambitious project to date, drenched in strings and pedal-steel guitars that take many different forms throughout the record. Tracks Everyday and Something to Believe feel very at home in a ‘70’s Paul McCartney/Carol King-esque melodic sensibility, when other tracks like Andromeda and Mirror Forever fit in the contemporary musical landscape very well. It creates a perfect bridge between the sweetness of ‘70’s pop and folk while keeping its modern sheen. The same can be said vocally: Mering’s voice is powerful, yet languid, never overreaching or pushing harder than is needed to access the emotive power of her vocal range. In tone it feels familiar, but still fresh in her songwriting.
Throughout the album’s ten tracks Mering takes some of the biggest concerns we face in 2019 and drives them home with a crushing personal intimacy. The album’s opener A Lot’s Gonna Change immediately sets this tone, where paranoia and fear of climate change is presented as a diaristic account of what it feels to be young and unafraid of the world.
These themes reach a climax on album standout Movies, where a submerged synth line frames a ballad asking what we expect and truly receive from the content we are inundated with: “Some people feel what some people don’t / Some people watch until they explode / The meaning of life doesn’t seem to shine like that screen”. The track later abruptly turns to violins and thumping drums as if to ask if it even matters at all.
To finally throw my locket to the bottom of the ocean, Titanic Rising is an absolute triumph for Weyes Blood. An album so ornate, ambitious and polished that it feels as if the Titanic truly has been raised up from the seabed. This is easily the best album I’ve heard this year.
- Fraser Coker.