Photo by Alana Wool

Since breaking through the atmosphere with her self-professed “heaven metal” on 2021’s Luminol, the emotional landscape Midwife conveys through blissed out guitar rock has never felt entirely present in our physical form. “Killzdozer”, the lead single the lead single from the Madeline Johnston’s fourth full-length effort, No Depression in Heaven, may feel closer to Earth than ever, but nevertheless, a specter looms. There’s a moment where Madeline Johnston sings, “Ghosts don’t even try to haunt me / I remember everything.” Her voice, delicately washed in reverb and over tendril chords of a single electric guitar, sounds like an echoey whisper from the beyond, haunted by memories of a town that’s in a dying state even though she continues to live on in search of open water and “something new.” This is to wonder: are you really living if there’s nothing or no one around you that makes you feel alive?

Directed by: Curt Heiner

Midwife’s No Depression in Heaven will be released September 6th on The Flenser.