In a letter accompanying the release of her latest album, Natalie Mering likens her heart to “a glow stick that’s been cracked.” If that’s the case, then And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow — the Los Angeles musician’s fifth full-length album as Weyes Blood — seems to document the strife of clambering through gloom armed with only a paltry glimmer.
Weyes Blood’s previous album, 2019’s Titanic Rising, was billed as the first of a trilogy. While its predecessor seemed to languish in the panic of an impending, uncertain doom, And In the Darkness wonders: What do we do when doom is finally here? In a twisted sort of kismet, that doom became more real than Mering bargained for. Just one year shy of Titanic Rising‘s first anniversary, COVID-19 broke out in the US. So, she got back to work.
“I think a lot of people were kind of in denial about what was really happening,” Mering recounts to Consequence by Zoom. “There was a certain point in the thick of it when I was like, ‘OK, the future is not what I thought it was gonna be like.’ It was a humbling experience. But I think when things get really dark, the best thing to do is focus in on the light.”
Such a light, And In the Darkness seems to argue, can come from human connection — a source Mering doesn’t take for granted. As a self-described “wandering minstrel” who’s spent the majority of her career thus far on the road, her closest friends are scattered around the globe, but she’s rarely alone.
“I think in general, I know what it’s like to feel isolated, even though I don’t think that my existence is isolated, because I get to be around people all the time,” she explains. “And across the board with my generation, I also see this loss of community. With the onset of social media, communities don’t happen [as much], and you can kind of sense that with how people interact with one another.”
The album’s wistful, plaintive opener “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody” embodies the odd alienation that can envelop you while in a crowd. “Oh, it’s been so long since I felt really known,” Mering broods in her distinctly rich alto. Meanwhile, over the singer-songwriter chug of “Grapevine,” she uses her penchant for vivid imagery to detail a relationship on the fritz: “California’s my body/ And your fire runs over me.”
