Musicians go through reinventions all the time, but go from Weyes Blood/Natalie Mering’s critically acclaimed 2019 album Titanic Rising to her debut album Strange Chalices of Seeing is still quite a shock. Think more Jandek or Sunn O))) and less Karen Carpenter. Released in 2007 under the spelling Weyes Bluhd, the album stands in stark contrast to Mering’s later output. Instead of warm, orchestral 70s style soft rock songs about life’s anxieties and impending doom, Strange Chalices of Seeing gives you frigid, anxiety inducing, droning tracks that you might play to warn someone of impending doom. OK, so maybe Strange Chalices of Seeing and Titanic Rising have a little bit more in common thematically than at first glance. But it’s still jarring to hear something so atonal from the same artist created the deliriously captivating “Andromeda.”
Because much of Strange Chalices of Seeing is sludgy, repetitive minimalism, it’s hard to highlight any tracks on here, especially any of the instrumentals that make up about half the album. A band such as Sunn O))) will throw in surprises such as black metal screeches, or use menacing, crunchy chords on their droning epics to keep listeners hooked despite the repetitiveness. On Strange Chalices of Seeing, Mering just lets the tones play out without much progression. It’s effective in creating a lo-fi horror feel, but it also causes the tracks to bleed together, making it kind of an grueling listen.
But hey, let’s see if we can still make notes on specific instrumentals. Opener “Rusted Sky Prison” interrupts its guitar feedback with blowing wind. “Raga of the Spine” interrupts its guitar feedback with, get this, humming! Or how about on “Remote Beach at Avernus,” where Mering sounds like she’s whacking her microphone on everything and scrubbing a guitar to get a whobbly sound effect while, guess what, feedback plays. Closer “Perspiration Elation” is just, um, guitar feedback (but higher pitch than most of the album!). Did I mention that there’s a lot of guitar feedback?
Yet, among the structureless noise, you can still hear hints of present day Weyes Blood. Whether she’s carelessly strumming away on “Ballad of the Broken Skull,” singing too closely to the microphone on “Deep in the Minor Arcana” or pounding on steely tribal drums on “Ice Age,” Mering’s folksy contralto voice sound a little more melodic, polished and controlled than the other elements on the album. In other words, if you listened to this album without knowing anything about Weyes Blood, you can still tell that the singer is a talented vocalist with a professional sounding voice. This isn’t to say that Mering’s vocals sound out of place; it actually fits with all the aforementioned feedback, which are generally on the lower register. But you might start to believe that such a voice could be even better suited for something more accessible, something poppier.
As I mentioned earlier, you can still make a tenuous connection between Strange Chalices of Seeing and Mering’s 2010s discography. Strange Chalices of Seeing puts the menace out in front with its atonality, while 2010s Weyes Blood applies a fuzzy, bright veneer over lyrics dealing with personal struggles and the world’s end. The latter certainly works better for her, and it’s not like the more polished sound has prevented her from continuing to be a little offbeat. In 2019, the same year that saw Billie Eilish leap into stardom with her combination of pop melodies and horror tropes, it’s oddly appropriate that the accompanying music video for the cheery, Beatles-influenced “Everyday” would be a slasher film.
In an interview, Mering stated that around the time of Strange Chalices of Seeing, she believed that “aggressive male energy” was the only way a woman could gain respect. While Strange Chalices of Seeing isn’t exactly aggressive*, it also can’t exactly be describe as “feminine.” The album is certainly a fascinating, eerie curiosity, but a lot of throwback music fans are probably thankful that Mering moved on from this phase, given that she possesses some incredible pop sensibilities. It’s as though she realized that even a genre such as soft rock can still effectively convey the anxieties of modern life, and that it’s fine to admit that you just want to lay down and cry.
*For aggressive Weyes Blood, here’s a 2006 video of her as the lead singer (or more appropriately, screamer) of the noise band Satanized
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