Watch Arch Enemy’s Alissa White-Gluz team with Charlotte Wessels (ex-Delain) in video for brand-new single Ode To The West Wind
· louderBy Matt Mills
( Metal Hammer )
published 18 September 2024
The team-up is taken from Wessels’ upcoming solo album, The Obsession
Ex-Delain singer Charlotte Wessels has teamed with Arch Enemy’s Alissa White-Gluz for new solo single Ode To The West Wind.
The track was released with an accompanying music video today (September 18), and will be heard on Wessels’ impending solo album The Obsession, out Friday (September 20). It’s the fifth time Wessels and White-Gluz have made a song together and sees White-Gluz turn in one of her most melodic performances to date.
In a press statement, Wessels explains that Ode To The West Wind pulls its title and themes from a Percy Shelley poem, while the video laments how humanity has treated the natural world.
She comments: “I’m thrilled to present the fifth single from The Obsession – and my fifth collaboration with the incomparable Alissa White-Gluz. Many of our songs together are inspired by or based on classic poetry, and Ode To The West Wind, drawn from Percy Shelley’s poem of the same name, is the latest addition to this thematic journey. Shelley’s poem reflects his admiration for the untameable force of nature and his thoughts on his own legacy.”
She continues: “For the music video, we explored humanity’s impact on the natural world (spoiler: it’s not pretty) by reimagining iconic artworks like Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above The Sea Of Fog and Raphael’s cherubs from the Sistine Madonna, only this time suffused with pollution, wings made of trash, and covered in toxic waste.
“I’m incredibly excited about how this song has evolved through my collaboration with the band and Alissa, I can’t wait to unleash this wall of sound at our upcoming shows, and of course I can't wait for you to experience this song in the full context of The Obsession – out in just a few days!”
Ode To The West Wind comes shortly after another collaborative track from Wessels, Dopamine, which features Epica frontwoman Simone Simons. Both tracks will appear on The Obsession, Wessels’ third solo album but the first wholly heavy metal effort under her own name.
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Earlier this year, it was announced that Wessels’ solo band is now rounded out by Timo Somers (guitars), Otto Schimmelpenninck van der Oije (bass), Joey Marin de Boer (drums) and Sophia Vernikov (keys). Wessels, Somers, Schimmelpenninck van der Oije and Marin de Boer are all former Delain members who simultaneously departed the band in 2021, leaving founder and keyboardist Martijn Westerholt as the sole member. Westerholt has since assembled a new Delain lineup and released the album Dark Waters last year.
Wessels and her largely ex-Delain solo band will tour Europe in October and November. See dates and get tickets.
Charlotte Wessels - Ode to the West Wind feat. Alissa White-Gluz (Official Music Video) - YouTube
Matt Mills
Contributing Editor, Metal Hammer
Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Prog and Metal Hammer, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, NME, Guitar and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.
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