The Innocents
The Innocents is a rare melodic and vocal masterpiece, navigating the depths of heartbreak through to the empowering resolve of the human spirit. Mering's beautifully sculpted melodic prose set against eerily smooth minor progressions yields a high powered and timeless recording that seems to manifest itself in new forms with each listen.
Natalie Mering, the brains behind indie-folk outfit Weyes Blood, has toured as a member of noise-rock outfit Jackie-O Motherfucker and alongside Nautical Almanac, though most listeners will recognize her robustly forlorn voice from Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti's Mature Themes. All those experiencess come to play on her second album, The Innocents.
Her proper debut, 2011's The Outside Room (attributed to Weyes Blood and the Dark Juices) was a murky pastiche of medieval folk influence buried deep in textural ambience, with the two different sides of Mering's muse competing for space and ultimately canceling each other out.