''Front Row Seat to Earth'' is the third studio album by American musician

Weyes Blood Natalie Laura Mering (born June 11, 1988), known professionally as Weyes Blood (pronounced ), is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She was primarily raised in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She has been performing her own material under ...

. It was released on October 21, 2016, by

Mexican Summer Mexican Summer is an independent record label founded in 2009 by Keith Abrahamsson and Andres Santo Domingo. Based in Brooklyn, New York, the label has released recordings from artists including Best Coast, Kurt Vile, Ariel Pink, Allah-Las, Weye ...

. Musically, the album explores several genres like

baroque pop Baroque pop (sometimes called baroque rock) is a fusion genre that combines rock music with particular elements of classical music. It emerged in the mid 1960s as artists pursued a majestic, orchestral sound and is identifiable for its appropria ...

, psychedelic folk, folk-pop, and psychedelic pop. ''Front Row Seat to Earth'' was acclaimed by music critics, with one of them comparing the singer with Karen Carpenter. ''Front Row Seat to Earth'' was supported by three singles: "Seven Words", released on August 10, 2016, "Do You Need My Love?", released on September 7, 2016, and "Generation Why", released on October 3, 2016. Despite not being promoted as a single, "Used to Be" received a music video on November 7, 2016. The album's cover art was photographed beside the

Salton Sea The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly saline body of water in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern end of the U.S. state of California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the Salton Trough that stretches to the Gulf o ...

Composition

Donning "the misty sounds of late '60s

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fol ...

and '70s AM radio," ''Front Row Seat to Earth'' pushes forward in

Blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the c ...

's "glacial slide towards psychedelic folk", yielding comparisons to Kevin Ayers,

Vashti Bunyan Vashti Bunyan (born Jennifer Vashti Bunyan, 1945) is an English singer-songwriter. Beginning her career in the mid-1960s, she released her debut album, ''Just Another Diamond Day'', in 1970. The album sold very few copies and Bunyan, discourage ...

, Linda Perhacs, and

Bridget St. John Bridget St John (born Bridget Anne Hobbs; 4 October 1946 in Surrey, England) is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist, best known for the three albums she recorded between 1969 and 1972 for John Peel's Dandelion record label. Peel produced ...

. The lyrics are based on various subjects, including romantic difficulties ("Do You Need My Love?"), addiction ("Diary"), and concerns about the modern world ("Generation Why"). The latter would be further explored on Natalie Mering's following album, ''

Titanic Rising ''Titanic Rising'' is the fourth studio album by American musician Weyes Blood, released on April 5, 2019 by Sub Pop. On January 17, 2019, Weyes Blood released the album's first single, "Andromeda". A second single, "Everyday", was released along w ...

'' (2019).

Singles

"Seven Words" was released as the album's lead single on August 10, 2016. It was called "Best New Track" by '' Pitchfork'', with reviewer Sam Sodomsky stating that the song "''conjures a kaleidoscopic vision of the 1970s' best kept secrets"''. An accompanying music video was released the same day, in which Mering is kidnapped by a taxi driver who forcibly feeds her with something that looks like octopus, after which she turns into a mermaid.

issued a

7-inch single In music, a single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record or an album. One can be released for sale to the public in a variety of formats. In most cases, a single is a song that is released separate ...

for "Seven Words" in October 2016, which featured digital bonus track "Three Tears" as a

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...

. Some of these were distributed randomly to Vinyl Me Please subscribers, while others were sold on tour at Weyes Blood gigs. "Do You Need My Love" was released digitally on September 7, 2016, as the album's second single. Like with the previous single, ''Pitchfork'' also called the song "Best New Track". "Generation Why",the album's third single, followed on October 3, 2016. A promotional video for "Used To Be" was also released on November 7th, after the album had been issued.

Critical reception

''Front Row Seat To Earth'' received widespread acclaim from music critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 82, based on 12 reviews. Michael Hann for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', referred to the album as "beautiful, unsettling and wholly compelling". Emily Mackay of ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'' gave a lukewarm review, even though she stated that Mering's "deep, pure, Karen Carpenter croon...could still slavering beasts".

Accolades

Track listing

Note * The digital download that came with the vinyl edition also featured an exclusive bonus track, "Three Tears" (4:59), that played at the end of the album after "Front Row Seat". It also featured on the B-side of the 7" edition of "Seven Words", but has otherwise not been made available elsewhere.

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2016 albums Weyes Blood albums