A whole lot of singing and string picking transpired in the midst of the 2000s, but few of the those leading last decade’s indie folk pack have flourished like Marissa Nadler. Continuing the progression away from the guitar and vocal-based template the Massachusetts-based artist utilized roughly a dozen years ago, her latest LP finds her in typically strong form and with an abundance of inspired ideas; Strangers is out May 20 on Sacred Bones in the USA and Bella Union in Europe.
The above shouldn’t suggest Marissa Nadler’s early work was an example of generic strumming and vocalizing; 2004’s Ballads of Living and Dying was unusually mature for a debut, dominated by original songs that frequently registered as traditional material and delivered in a voice reminiscent of Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval minus the chanteuse allure.
If decidedly more folk oriented, Nadler inhabited the discerning regions of the stylistic spectrum, adapting words by Edgar Allen Poe and Pablo Neruda on her first album and tapping into relationship breakup territory for inspiration as she produced her sophomore effort, ’05’s The Saga of Mayflower May. While her development was part of the indie folk surge, she didn’t connect as Freaky or Weird, her mezzo-soprano revealing affinities with Kate Bush but without mimicking her ethereal qualities. Nadler has been classified as “dream-folk,” however.
The aftermath of said breakup persisted in shaping the Espers-assisted Songs III: Bird on the Water, the first of two for the Kermado label (her prior records were issued on the Eclipse imprint). But if derived from rocky subject matter, Nadler wasn’t a wrung-out dishcloth of emotion and she consistently sidestepped overly fragile modes right out of the gate. Furthermore, ’09’s Little Hells significantly broadened the music’s instrumental scope, though she had been subtly distinguishing herself from the standard folky thing all the way back to the beginning.
In 2011 Nadler released an eponymous full-length on her own Box of Cedar label that extended her growth very nicely; it, Little Hells, and ’12’s “The Sister” EP sorta come together as the second stage in Nadler’s discography, leaving ’14’s July, a disc that additionally honed her sound and resulted in an expansion of her profile and critical standing, as the start of a fresh phase.
And yet far from a radical departure; July served as Nadler’s first for Bella Union in the UK and Sacred Bones in the States as Strangers retains the input of Randall Dunn, a producer noted for his success with progressive metallers Sunn O))), Boris, Wolves in the Throne Room, and Earth. He might seem an odd fit for Nadler’s general aesthetic, but she did provide guest vocals for Portal of Sorrow by black metal project Xasthur in 2010 as Dunn has worked with the excellent Jesse Sykes, a contemporary of Nadler’s in spirit if not overall sound.
Other than a small bit of accenting from a cymbal, Strangers’ “Divers of the Dust” consists of just piano and voice as the production instills a lush atmosphere advancing Nadler out of the aforementioned dream-folk scenario and into a full-on dream-pop ballpark, the gradual ballad-like pace deepening the association with Kate Bush.
“Katie I Know” begins with a glistening guitar passage before introducing a sturdy rhythmic foundation, an element helping to differentiate Strangers from her earlier stuff. It’s not that she hasn’t employed drums; she indeed has, and even used a drum machine on Little Hells. But the instrument is more common here than before as soaring chamber strings add another welcome layer. Spreading out to positive effect, the tune fades out as it nears six minutes.
After July Nadler’s work was awarded with the “gothic-folk” descriptor, which kinda makes sense if one’s thinking of aged black and white photos of unsmiling ancestors, but less so if analogy is Fields of the Nephilim. With this said, “Skyscraper” does acquire a dark tension as it unfurls. From there album standout “Hungry Is the Ghost” is an immersion into dream-pop with shoegazing guitar-pedal textures so prominent it brought to mind a collab of Julee Cruise and Kevin Shields.
If this seems like exaggeration, please understand she shares a label with Cruise collaborator David Lynch. The pretty but substantial “All the Colors of the Dark” weds the Bush/ Cruise air to electric piano and percussion as the strength and focus of Nadler’s singing and playing unifies with her previous output while pushing forward; the title track brings range to Strangers via pedal steel.
“Janie in Love” highlights its writer’s abilities as a pop songstress and has unsurprisingly functioned as a pre-release online single; the instrumentation coheres into ’90s shoegaze-tinged melodic rock with understated touches of Morricone-esque guitar, a recipe that might read like no great shakes but succeeds through savvy execution.
A major point in Nadler’s favor is a lack of the grandiose, and if she migrates away from happiness toward moody climes she continues to deftly eschew the maudlin; “Waking” is a concise nugget of lullaby-like lushness as “Shadow Show Diane” scales back to just her axe and voice to produce a gorgeous aura of melancholy enhanced by vocal multi-tracking. With its organ strains, intermingled guitar tones and drumming, “Nothing Feels the Same” is amongst the most band-oriented selections here, strong enough that a whole LP in this direction has tangible potential.
It’s hopefully clear by now that Nadler’s musical evolution has been incremental, with no drastic plunges or sharp detours into uncharted terrain (the closest she’s come was probably Little Hells). The distance accrued since Ballads of Living and Dying is considerable, though Strangers’ closer “Dissolve” fruitfully revisits her initial style. Circa ’04 she was a promising musician in a wide-open field, but through heightened confidence and sharpened ability, she’s now at the top of her game.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
