Album Anniversaries: Weyes Blood Seeks Light in 'Titanic Rising'

In the year since Weyes Blood released Titanic Rising, the album’s themes of finding hope in isolation ring all the more poignant today.

In Album Anniversaries, writers honor their favorite aging albums and their subsequent legacies, revealing which projects have stood the test of time.

Written by Katie Karp

Bigger than the bed or desk in her childhood bedroom, where posters fill the walls and books cover the floor, Natalie Mering stands submerged in water.

On the cover of Mering’s fourth studio album as Weyes Blood, the artist’s small, flooded bedroom that she has clearly outgrown is dark — her are walls painted blue, her floor is black, and even her lamp is dimmed — but the light from the window is strong, and so she stands beside it. The idea of gravitating towards light amidst darkness to avoid the feeling of suffocation is one that many of us are familiar with as we are confined to our bedrooms in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mering released Titanic Rising a year ago, on April 5, 2019, far before coronavirus was a threat, but the themes that embody it feel more relevant today than ever before.

“Stuck inside the wall / I’m wonderin’ how we ever got here / With no fear we’d fall,” Mering sings in “Wild Time.” While these reflective thoughts mirror the common feeling of disbelief towards the spread and impact of the coronavirus, Mering wrote this song as a tribute to tackling the climate crisis. Though she acknowledges the great potential danger climate change poses, Mering remains hopeful, reminding people that the issue is within our own hands: “Turn around it’s time for you / To slowly let these / Changes / make you / More holy and true.”

Mering’s ode to protecting the environment is an apparent thread in Titanic Rising. Not only does the album cover reinforce the message to stay hopeful amidst high sea levels, but the title explicitly references the rising waters and the 1997 film “Titanic.” While the epic love story masks the true horrors of the shipwreck, “Titanic” opened twelve-year-old Mering’s eyes to both the “hubris of man,” as well as the brainwashing capabilities of film.

Image courtesy of Rolling Stone Magazine

“Movies” further explores how films manipulate our expectations, staging scenes that create our vision of what love or life should be. Lyrics like, “The meaning of life doesn’t seem to shine like that screen / Put me in a movie and everyone will know me” reveal both the reliance people have on films for answers to what is important in addition to the desire for recognition. Monetary awards for being Instagram or TikTok famous only clarify the current hunger to be seen and heard by a wide range of people, even on a surface level.

Even within her own bedroom, Mering demonstrates her longing to find meaning below the surface. Her hunger for a deeper meaning is apparent throughout Titanic Rising. Mering chronicles her difficulties in grasping the world around her in “Something to Believe.” Going through the motions of another lackluster day, Mering has difficulty in finding purpose and seeking “something I can see / Something bigger and louder than the voices;” a struggle that our current state of surreality only reinforces.

Mering has the gift of conceptualizing some of the issues that torment us most, from climate change to isolation to lack of purpose, and offers hope and beautiful, poetic melodies to uplift them. Last February, prior to the album's release, Mering shared in an interview with Pitchfork, “I hope you could have a smile during the apocalypse and be grateful for whatever conditions exist, because life is a beautiful thing.” As Titanic Rising celebrates its first birthday, take time to celebrate with it; many of the themes and questions that Mering ponders feel more prominent today than ever.

ANALYSISAfterglow ATXApril 17, 2020