Album Review: Weyes Blood – Titanic Rising (Sub Pop)

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The fourth album by Natalie Mering finds the indie songstress revelling in the lush sounds of the early 1970s.

Opening track A Lot’s Gonna Change begins with a discordant synth intro. But it’s a 20 second red herring.

A piano takes over and suddenly the listener is awash in a lush ballad that might have been recorded by any of the great sirens of the 70s…Karen Carpenter, Carly Simon, Judy Collins, Cass Elliott…take your pick.

“If I could go back to a time before now”, Mering, aka Weyes Blood, sings nostalgically. “Born in a century lost to memories”, she wistfully continues later in the song.

This is an artist that definitely has one foot in the past while heading into the future.

“I try to be futuristic and ancient at once”, she claims.

While earlier Weyes Blood albums have found Mering pushing forward, Titanic Rising is very much rooted in the past.

Singles Andromeda and Everyday sound like pop gems from some golden era. The first with its dreamy strings and surprising slide guitar, the latter with its bouncy handclaps and big production…as if Harry Nilsson had fronted The Turtles.

Lyrically, Mering is much more contemporary.

Despite its carefree sound, Everyday claims “True love is making a comeback” but “for only half of us”. The singer asks, “Is this the end of all monogamy?” Not the stuff of you average Carpenters record.

Even the sequencer used to anchor the song Movies sounds vintage making the track at once uplifting and mesmerising. “Put me in a movie and everyone will know me” she sings and the slow building song arrives at its climatic ending with Mering sounding as though she’s getting lost in her own song.

Mirror Forever takes a darker turn as the singer starts out supportive but ultimately frustrated by a long distance romance that finds her playing second fiddle. “Can’t stand being your second best…I’ll see you around, the next time you come to town”. Yes, it’s complicated.

Part of the beauty of Mering’s songwriting is the straightforward manner in which she’s able to communicate those complex emotions. And the lush soundscape doesn’t hurt either.

She’s at her most pastoral on Wild Time with its layers of voices , the strings and the gentle “ba-ba-bas”. It the equivalent of an aural soufflé.

Out of the 10 tracks that comprise Titantic Rising, two are brief instrumentals, with the record closing with a string quartet playing Nearer To Thee. But Mering’s not drowning in nostalgia, she’s just using the past to find her way forward.

Marty Duda

 

 

 

 

Marty Duda
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