Photo by Alana Wool

It doesn’t need to be sentient in order for it to be deserving of real love. With “Vanessa”, the latest oreview from Midwife’s new album, No Depression In Heaven, it’s as if Madeline Johnston took up her guitar and said to herself, “Get in the van, and turn your song into a cryptic love story about honoring anything in this life even if it isn’t human.” Her “heaven metal” approach in building a black rainbow bridge between heavier shoegaze and reverb-drenched folk echoes from the inner spirit have usually always made for a softer shade of extending this bliss, but here, the listen’s tendril markers shape out further into flesh and bone. If these wheels could talk, they’d whisper “I love you” back.

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