Chelsea Wolfe : "Unbound"

 If She said the versions of these songs found on this EP were how they were originally written, before being re-mixed into what was presented on "She Reaches Out to, She Reaches Out to..." it would make perfect sense as this sounds more like who she is. Not to say the more trip-hop feel of the album she released earlier this year is not also another shade of what she does as an artist, this resonates more to her emotional core. I prefer this version of "Whispers in the Echo Chamber" over what was on the album. I only have to get a few measures into the verse of 'Dusk" and you hear how it bears much more in common with the stuff from an album like "Apokalypsis" regarding how the vocal melody flows.

Her voice sounds even better on "The Liminal". The lyrics hold more weight like this. She is up on the mix belting it out but not forsaking the ghostly quality. Perfect production of the vocals, just the right amount of reverb. In all fairness, I will have to sit down and a/b these versions again the album version, just as the study of an obsessive music freak, but this hits you with all the emotions where the album version is draped in electronic trappings that create a different illusion. It's not a bad one, just different. 

The same can be said of " Place in the Sun" though it is set to a simple piano melody, thus giving it a more Tori Amos, in how she uses her voice more like an instrument. The vocal embellishments are stunning and I would say she is one of the best female vocalists out there today. Similar to some of the veils she has worn in performance, her career and artistic vision are breaking through a shroud she dons herself to create a world where she is not overwhelmed by the bright lights of the stage which are her own internal criticisms, how she sees her self versus how we see her as the audience. She often can not see her own beauty but hopefully, she hears it when listening back to something like this. 

A cover of a Spiritbox song is not what I would expect, but she makes her own. It makes sense after being on the festival circuit that she would cross paths with the band. Like Elvis, Bowie, or Tori Amos, when she covers a song she makes her own., not the first cover I have heard from her but the most complete vision of a song she has reconstructed in this manner.I will give this a 10, it's what it seems like it should have been. Drops November 15th on Lorna Vista . 

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