Fear, Emptiness, Decibel: Doom Folk Chanteuse Chelsea Wolfe is the Subject of the Latest Converse x Decibel

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

So, we have a new Converse x Decibel video to premiere today. If you’re uninitiated to this installment’s subject, you will likely watch the first 40 seconds—featuring a whispering young woman cast in shadow before a gray backdrop—and experience a (non-Viagra-related) increase in heart rate. It’s so cryptic and unsettling and foreboding—the sort of thing you can almost imagine leading into, say, one of Pig Destroyer’s trademark shrapnel blasts.

That doesn’t happen. At all.

What does ensue may seem incongruous to, like, you know, what our magazine does. It’s basically a four-minute quasi-video featuring L.A.-based singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe (not to be confused with Chelsea Grin, and both parties would be severely bummed if you did) and what’s been dubbed “doom folk.” If you’re patient and give it its due, the music is not super far removed from the likes of dB favorites Ides of Gemini, or even Xasthur collaborator Marissa Nadler. And Wolfe’s extreme leanings are impressive—she’s covered Burzum’s “Black Spell of Destruction,” and her eponymous band offered doom and noise rock on 2011’s Apokalypsis before last year’s Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs.

Press play and judge for yourself. Unlike most of this series, there’s no actual interview content, so Wolfe’s evidently big on being judged by the merit of her art.

The March 2013 issue of Decibel features Mike Patton, Voivod, Soilwork, an awesome Cathedral flexi disc, and a Slayer Hall of Fame, and can be ordered here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?