CD Odyssey Disc 1284: Marissa Nadler

My last review was “Hell Among the Yearlings” and this album is “Little Hells” which is the same thing if you think about it.

Disc 1284 is… Little Hells

Artist: Marissa Nadler

Year of Release: 2009

What’s up with the Cover? Marissa stares at the floor, or maybe she’s enamored with that giant brooch she’s wearing.

How I Came to Know It: I read a review for her 2018 album “For My Crimes” and I fell pretty deep, buying five of her albums in the space of about a month and a half. “Little Hells” was the last one I bought (it is an earlier record, and harder to find).

How It Stacks Up:  I have five Marissa Nadler albums. I’m not sure why, but I do. Anyway, I expected “Little Hells” to really wow me, but since it didn’t, and I don’t know the other albums very well yet, I’m going to be optimistic and say this one is #5.

Ratings: 2 stars

“Little Hells” is an ethereal album. This can make it delightfully mysterious, but it can also make it feel hard to connect with.

Marissa Nadler has a beautiful voice, breathy and filled with angst. She sounds like a fallen angel trying to sing her way back to heaven. This is what first drew me to her music, and at times captivated my attention.

This was particularly true on two songs: “Ghosts & Lovers” and “Mistress” which have the strongest songwriting and share a pale and forlorn beauty that permeates the whole record to some extent, but comes out strongest here.

“Ghosts & Lovers” is a song for anyone who has walked through the stark world after ending a relationship. Nadler evokes the image of “a family of four” walking by, underscoring the narrator’s own state of aloneness. Nadler masterfully mixes the concept of a ghost and the memory of a lover, singing:

“Ghosts and lovers
They will haunt you for a while
From the stars and from the sheets and ground”

The tune is ghostly and along with the low pronounced presence of the bass guitar will make you feel haunted.

“Mistress” – inexplicably named “Mistress on a Sunny Day” inside the CD case and by its shorter title on the back – is another tear-jerker. That said, the sometimes-mentioned “sunny day” does shine through in the melody, which has a soaring quality that lets you know better days are ahead. In this case, those better days are seen through the eyes of a mistress who has decided to no longer wait on the vain promises that her lover will leave his wife. She’s moving on and while it’s sad, it’s also triumphant.

Both songs benefit from a misty insubstantial production which works for them, but unfortunately the whole album features that same quality. Taken together there is a bit too much of the same thing. A lot of other tracks have the feel of a solid folk song that is too saturated in atmosphere and excess production. This is particularly true of “Heart Paper Lover.” This song features a Theremin recreating the sound of when the steering in your car is about to go. The first time I heard it I took my headphones off twice to locate the car, before realizing it was deliberate. In this case, deliberately annoying.

Also, while Nadler does sad very well with this much sadness on one record there are bound to be missteps. “Brittle, Crushed & Torn” is maudlin and the play on words of the song title “The Whole is Wide” is not clever enough to make up for self-conscious lyrics like “I’m more than blue/I’m violet.”

I had a lot of chores that involved long bus rides over the weekend, and I got in a lot of listens to “Little Hells,” probably six or seven although at some point I lost count. My last listen on the walk home tonight was the most enjoyable one yet. I ascribe this partly to Stockholm Syndrome, and partly to the fact that these atmospheric mood pieces benefit from a lengthy immersion. I never got tired of “Little Hells” but I also never fell in love the way I wanted.

Instead that last walk home felt like the last kiss from one of Nadler’s lovelorn characters; lingering on my lips a little too long, and a little too distant, making me realize I had never loved this music like I hoped I would. Part of me thinks Marissa would like it this way.

Best tracks: Ghosts & Lovers, Mistress (or Mistress on a Sunny Day)