Chrysalis by Aurelia Anne Cohen

In Chrysalis, Aurelia Anne Cohen crafts a spellbinding folk record of original songs that carry the quiet power of prairie melancholy. These are not ballads of grand heroism or sweeping myth, but tales told in firelight—women waiting, walking away, resisting, mourning, remembering.

Cohen’s voice—clear, mournful, and otherworldly—hovers in the alto range with a controlled tremble that never slips into fragility. Her songs feel timeless but not nostalgic—this is a fresh collection of rollicking folk bangers that draw on Eastern European lullabies, Appalachian laments, and Celtic echoes.

The album’s final track, Fates, is a parting blessing in the Irish tradition, repurposed as a gift for a lover. Though the wind may be at their back and the sun is shining down, stormy weather ominously colors Cohen’s landscape to fell any pie-eyed traveler. It is an apt theme for this dark, smoky album that defies folk expectation. Far from jaunty squeeze-box clichés, Cohen’s accordion is atmospheric and poignant, a harmonious voice all its own, particularly in the windswept “Everyone’s got their story.”

Pretend Song and Tumbleweed (with its charming whistle chorus), are both spirited banjo floor-stompers. In the latter, Cohen is the eponymous Wayfaring Stranger, a lone wanderer spreading seeds and enigma— “Where are you going, babe? I can not say.” Chrysalis implores the listener to follow.

For those drawn to the liminal spaces of folk music, where sorrow and beauty meet in the dark, Cohen’s Chrysalis is a rare and haunting find.

Review by Kate Flannery

Original time travelin folk musician and circus freak, found wherever Vaudeville survives.

Www.aureliacohen.com
Www.intuitive-compass.com
Www.thebarnswallows.com
Www.flamchen.com