Being a person is exhausting. The empathy that charges Chelsea Wolfe’s best songs innately understands. Wolfe has a record of walking straight into the broken heart of tragedy—victims of suicide, natural disaster, and terrorism have all been paid tribute in her catalog, from the poignant grandeur of 2013’s “The Waves Have Come” to the metallic riffs of last year’s “Iron Moon.” Wolfe’s shattering themes underscore her self-described “folk roots” and lend the music a bracingly contemporary edge—they’re not goth for the sake of it. Her enveloping arrangements and elegant, versatile voice (the high notes of last year’s “Survive” imagined Lorde fronting a doom metal band) can feel more protective than haunting.

The understated, acoustic “Hypnos” is a just-released B-side to last year’s colossal Abyss. Here, Wolfe does something maybe harder, as she claws at the catastrophes within her own soul, not the outside world. It’s pulled along by wide-open fingerpicking and a quaking atmsophere, featherlight in form and heavy with unsayable experience. “Oh baby, I’ll carry your disease/ The darkness that lives inside you deep,” she sings at the chorus, her voice both shivering and forthright, “Oh honey, I’ll put up a fight with death/ He’s never coming near my love again.” “Hypnos” begins menacing and air-tight but opens a window as it unspools. It’s as if the song itself is a liberating act of admission, arriving at its end with hope, some peace, and a space to breathe.

Pre-order the “Hypnos / Flame” 7″ HERE (US $ store, ships worldwide) or HERE (UK £ store, ships to EU).

(via Pitchfork)