Chloe Drallos confronts love and selfhood within the mythological dreamscape of 'The Cave'
Detroit singer-songwriter Chloe Drallos’ established catalog as Zilched leaned heavily into shoegaze conventions, flecked with prismatic psychedelia and a remarkable talent for pop-informed songcraft that contrasted obfuscating density with effervescent clarity to brilliant effect. Stepping out from the shelter of a pseudonym and performing under her own name on The Cave, Drallos reveals a more organic, nuanced, inviting, and more terrifying perspective that delves into the primordial foundations of her innermost psyche, casting rays of brilliant illumination across chambers and grottos resplendent with glittering jewels of romantic prose and crystalline emotive structures in pursuit of a deeper understanding of self.
Stripping back the sonic density of her earlier work, The Cave is notably sparser from a compositional standpoint, but no less impactful, affording Drallos plenty of space to allow her voice and words to confidently capture the spotlight. From her position at the center, Drallos exudes an air of restrained grandeur that imbues The Cave with a haunted sensation, but one of great warmth and humanity more like a slumbering country manor, wood-paneled and populated with the dusty ghosts of absent residents that fill the rooms like sheeted furniture, rather than the pristine emptiness of a mausoleum. In that sense, The Cave is very much a place of shelter for a solitary soul to recede from the complications of the outside world and find respite, but also a place where demons nest behind folds of velvet shadows with claws outstretched and threatening to drag the undisciplined irrevocably further from the light.
Each track on The Cave is one of intent, and the diligently positioned instrumentation serves to enhance rather than overpower, an impeccable display of sonic mise-en-scène that provides context and embellishment in the manner of a gilded frame surrounding the layered brushstrokes of a classical masterwork. Opening with the smoky psychedelic drone of “And To Each Weekend” the album rises like heady incense from the crucible of longing and desire before blossoming into lush melodic foliage waving the the heat of a summer afternoon. As the tracklist ebbs and flows, Drallos captures the essence of daylight’s waning hours into the fleeting moments of the gloaming, where spirits permeate the veil between reality and perception. Acoustic guitar and shuffling rhythms invite mellow basslines to lounge in repose but never slip into the somnambulistic folds of indifferent lethargy, instead propelling a narrative of self-discovery that plumbs the beyond with inquisitive determination.
Drallos’ writing is in top form throughout The Cave, bursting with incredible vibrancy substantial enough to stand alone as printed word and pulling inspiration from the philosophical precepts of 20th-century romantic Joseph Campbell who taught generations to follow their bliss on a self-guided path to unbridled fulfilment. Drallos follows her bliss on a hero’s journey into the heart of The Cave, a journey of conquest refusing to shy away from the trials that forge her burgeoning mythology. From the violent carnality of “Rust” to the tender conquest of “Mirror Or A Door” and the confessional surrender of “No Vacancy,” Drallos wrestles with the Balrog of love in all its incendiary forms, embracing darkness in pursuit of self-actualization to emerge Christ-like from the tomb, transformed by the crushing weight and immeasurable beauty of understanding mined from the sacrifice of complete surrender to the overpowering totality of love’s unyielding abyss.
The Cave is bolstered by a triptych of surreal videos, underscoring the album’s thematic beats with dreamlike visuals that inhabit the liminal space between wakefulness and sleep, life and death, with the grace and mystery of heavenly bodies adrift in the void but bound by the invisible tethers of inexorable gravity, thrumming with smoldering symbolism that scalds the psyche through graphic impressionism and ephemeral ambiguity. Intricately layered slice-of-life footage, kaleidoscopic explosions of color, and moments of grotesque body horror form the visual language of Drallos’ beatification, an exorcism of mythical proportions filtered and magnified through the lens of individual perspective and personal intimacy.
The Cave is available now on limited vinyl via Life Like. Stream the album on Spotify and follow Chloe Drallos on Instagram.
Upcoming Shows
JUN 13 - The Field Office - Detroit, MI