With the recent gloomy weather bringing my mood down, I have been on the hunt for new music to provide me comfort. At my friend’s suggestion, I listened to Weyes Blood’s fifth studio album “And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow,” released on Nov. 18, 2022. This album, lyrically and sonically, spoke to me on a very personal level and quickly became one of my favorite albums of 2022.

Weyes Blood, known offstage as Natalie Mering, has a soft and deeply haunting voice that expertly moves the listener through this angelic collection of 10 songs. Though it touches on many themes, Mering mainly explores the concept of connection within isolation in the short album. “We’ve all become strangers, even to ourselves,” Mering sings in the lead single, “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody.” Through this song, she relates how feelings of loneliness can uniquely cultivate connection in social situations. Many people endure similar fears of isolation, and Mering defines these ideas as a universal human experience. 

Additionally, darker undertones in Mering’s album are clearly influenced by the global pandemic. In songs like “The Worst is Done,” she unites her own personal apocalypses with global ones. Personal change in the past few years largely coincided with the pandemic for a lot of people. I often wonder how different I would be without my high school experience split in pieces. 

Though each song blends fairly seamlessly into the next, my personal favorite on the album is the song “God Turn Me Into a Flower.” This delicate and heartbreaking song is 6 minutes long and lyrically relays the myth of Narcissus before fading into birdsong. I know this concept sounds slightly bizarre, I promise the song itself is cohesive and achingly beautiful.

The production of this album alone makes the listen worth it. The multi-layered harmonies and orchestral compositions paired with occasional disorganized strings complete this album. “And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow” is intimate and personal to Mering, and yet houses many relatable ideas. 

Overall, I adored this album. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who likes unconventional pop or folk-inspired music. Or any Lana Del Ray fans looking for similar lyrical poeticism.

On this blog, members of the Carmel High School chapter of the Quill and Scroll International Honorary Society for High School Journalists (and the occasional guest writer) produce curations of all facets of popular culture, from TV shows to music to novels to technology. We hope our readers always leave with something new to muse over. Click here to read more from MUSE.