Weyes Blood - And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow (LP)

Back in November 2022, Weyes Blood followed up Titanic Rising with And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow on Sub Pop, and it’s the kind of record that sneaks up on you in the quiet parts of the evening. Natalie Mering has a way of writing songs that feel both antique and eerily current, like she’s found a hidden frequency running from Laurel Canyon to right now. The second chapter in a planned trilogy, this one sits squarely in that hazy middle act, where the shock has worn off but the ache lingers.

The opener, It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody, sets the mood with a waltzing sway and a choir of strings that arrive like a tide. She leans into the communal loneliness so many of us felt around the time, but never turns it into a lecture. The arrangement is patient, almost courtly, and then her voice rises up the middle with this soft, bell-clear tone that’s somehow both confessional and grand. That contrast runs through the album. The songs are lush but she never drowns in her own orchestration. It’s the keen melodic sense that keeps everything anchored.

Grapevine is a standout. California geography becomes heartbreak cartography, the kind of breakup song that trades big drama for the slow burn of long drives and the sting of memory. You can practically see the freeway shimmer in the heat. Guitars glint, percussion taps like indicator lights, and she keeps cutting back to these refrains that feel inevitable. Weyes Blood has always had a knack for hymnal cadences inside pop forms, and you hear it here in the way chords resolve like a sigh.

God Turn Me Into a Flower is the album’s deep breath. It opens spare, then unfurls into a gauzy, near-ambient swell of synths and choral haze. On headphones it feels like watching fog roll across water. Live, it can hush a room. She’s not showy with the production, just meticulous. The title track glows quietly, all heartbeat pulse and soft-focus harmony. Twin Flame smoulders, almost theatrical in its pacing, while The Worst Is Done tips a weary wink at the last few years, shrugging through gallows humour and the strange relief of surviving a storm you never saw coming.

Part of the charm here is how she steers clear of pastiche. Yes, the palette nods to 70s soft rock and chamber pop, but the writing is modern in its emotional grid. There’s a clarity to the lyrics, plainspoken and slightly surreal, like a friend explaining a dream over tea. You get that late-night kitchen-table intimacy all over the record, even as strings bloom and woodwinds trace curlicues around the vocal lines. It’s hard not to think of it as a full world rather than just a set of songs.

The reception bore that out. Critics lined up to call it one of 2022’s finest, and it showed up on year-end lists across major outlets, with Pitchfork tagging it as Best New Music and the likes of NPR and The Guardian praising the songwriting and scale. The live shows that followed under the In Holy Flux banner only deepened the aura, bringing the arrangements to life without losing the record’s candlelit hush.

If you collect Weyes Blood vinyl, this one is essential. The low end is warm and unhurried, strings have space to bloom, and her voice sits right where it should, just forward enough to feel close. If you’re crate-digging at a Melbourne record store, it’s the sleeve you’ll spot from a few bins away, that glowing heart casting its little beacon. And if you prefer to buy Weyes Blood records online, And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow vinyl is widely available through Sub Pop’s channels and local shops that specialise in vinyl records Australia. It’s also a strong gateway if you’re after Weyes Blood albums on vinyl and want to trace the arc from Titanic Rising to wherever she heads next.

What sticks after a dozen plays is how humane the whole thing feels. Big themes play out at a human scale, with strings and organs and gentle drums wrapping around melodies that feel familiar on first listen and richer on the fifth. It’s an album for evenings, for quiet rooms, for anyone who still believes that pop can carry big feelings without raising its voice. Hearts aglow indeed.