Weyes Blood is Natalie Mering, who has been floating around the US counterculture for a while: singing with Ariel Pink, appearing on the unexpectedly lovely Drugdealer album earlier this year and taking a place in the acid folk collective Jackie-O Motherfucker, as well as having a solo career. None of which quite prepares you for the loveliness of Front Row Seat to Earth, an album on which Mering’s voice – rich and warm, but with phrasing that is precise and almost formal – is backed by instrumentation that manages to take the best bits of early-70s Laurel Canyon rock without sounding like a throwback. One wonders how many of the lyrics are truthful, and how much Mering is constructing a character – there’s a theme running through the songs, and it is that of someone declaring their love in a slightly terrifying way. It’s beautiful, unsettling and wholly compelling.
