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| Consequenceofsound |
 Marissa Nadler‘s first record, 2004′s Ballads of Living and Dying, could describe all of her work, since she strives to capture the finer details of distress while keeping central the idea that to truly live is to daily die. Nadler’s work has mainly surveyed struggle, sometimes her own, as on “Diamond Heart”, or others, like Virginia Woolf’s on “Virginia”, and her very unique voice is well-placed to search out the nooks of the shattered human spirit.There is an air of melancholy that cloaks her work, from The Saga of Mayflower May (2005) to Songs III: Bird on the Water (2007) to Little Hells (2009), and her self-titled record is no exception. Other interesting musicians like Josephine Foster, Sharon Van Etten, and Joanna Newsom spring to mind when thinking of Nadler; she shares a common ground with Foster on the way she channels others’ work, old poets, and old stories; Van Etten because of the soaring, passionate delivery; and Newsom in terms of her beautiful vocal oddity, often sounding as if she is holding words in her mouth, where they frolic, bobbing around until she releases them to the sky....full text |
| Avclub |
| After her most recent release, 2009’s Little Hells, Marissa Nadler contributed extensive vocals to Portal Of Sorrow, the swansong by the atmospheric metal act Xasthur. But that doesn’t mean that Nadler’s fifth, self-titled album takes a turn for the heavy. At least not in the conventional sense—Marissa Nadler is indeed expansive, but it presses on the chest and pulls at the soul in its own feathery, ethereal way. The album peels back the meatier arrangements found on Little Hells; the result is bony and brittle, with Nadler’s poisoned-candy voice and birdlike plucking occasionally joined by accompanist Carter Tanton. The lap steel is particularly ghostly on “The Sun Always Reminds Me Of You,” in which Nadler turns the innocuous refrain of “You look like someone that I used to know” into an aching, yearning mantra. And “Wedding,” with its cloudlike overlay of melancholic ambience, imagines a death-waltz mating of Mark Kozelek and Jolie Holland. Two songs on the album, “Mr. John Lee Revisited” and “Daisy, Where Did You Go?”, serve as sequels to earlier Nadler compositions. But “Daisy”—which picks up where Nadler’s doom-ridden, conjoined-twin folktale “Daisy & Violet” leaves off—offers the most shimmering imagery: “Daisy, where did you go,” Nadler trills in the cracked syllables of the surviving sister, “with my phantom limbs and eerie hymns?” The answer is implicit: They’re woven into every fiber of Marissa Nadler....full text |
| Pitchfork |
| Puppet Master", the sixth song on the new album by Marissa Nadler, opens as a lonely country shuffle. Over a muted beat and a quiet circular guitar line, Nadler again pines for a lover who's left, something she's done about as well as any young American songwriter during the last decade. "Cobalt and sea, come back to me," she sings, her loneliness delivered like a ghost's whisper. "I'll never do you wrong." But 90 seconds in, "Puppet Master" takes an unexpected turn, adding vibraphone and transitioning to a near-waltz that suggests the Ronnettes, just slowed and simplified. Nadler's experience sublimates into a puppet's innocence: "Lately, all I want is you," she offers, sweetly and almost cheerily. "Puppet master, see me through." Nadler volleys between mourning and flirting on "Puppet Master", the centerpiece of her first album for own label, Box of Cedar. It's a telling move, too: Her looks at love have grown increasingly intricate, subtle and-- most importantly-- realistic since her 2004 debut. Her songs are now much too considered to be only elegiac, too complex to be simply sad. That idea translates musically as well. Just like "Puppet Master", the best songs here make slight and unexpected detours. With the help of producer Brian McTear, the songs fit together naturally; whether above synthesizers or acoustic guitar, Nadler never sounds forced. "In Your Lair, Bear", for instance, is an opening masterstroke, a bold six-minute move that patiently rises over its duration. Drums, strings, electric guitars, and harmonies enter and exit in turn; Nadler's two characters use each other, seasonally wearing one another like amulets or accessories. "I took you home, and I crashed you," she sings at the end, subverting her general role as the one demolished by love. She assumes the power just to admit she's abused it. Nadler's songs are frank, careful examinations of all the ways a relationship can grow cold. Her music sounds as somber as ever here, and her distant air remains one of the most absolutely haunting things you're likely to find anywhere near indie rock. But she's grown past solipsism to become more of a reporter on the battles she's seen. During "Alabaster Queen", she admits giving over to a someone who is nothing but trouble, excusing the "women wistful wanting" with a deliberateness that foretells how badly this will all end. For the emotional minefield "Baby I Will Leave You in the Morning", Nadler's protagonist preemptively asks for forgiveness before she hits the road, where she'll drink to sleep-- most likely, with another lover. She doesn't blame the despair of the gorgeously pained "Wind Up Doll" on the dead husband, and she doesn't badmouth the lover who doesn't reciprocate her eternal, exhausting feelings during "Wedding". She just shares those stories in songs that are as gorgeous as they are elliptical and intriguing....full text |
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