Nadja - Excision

As any follower knows, Nadja have an extremely high musical output rate. But you couldn’t blame them for milking commercial teats as it’s almost all been original music. Over God knows how many albums during the ten years since their conception Nadja have released only three compilations and four live albums – a drastically small percentage of their discography, with the majority made from full-length albums. So it’s nice to see this platter of previously limited vinyl-only releases “excised” and made available to a wider audience. There’s a good chunk of listening to do here over two CDs with the total run-time coming to two hours, thirty-four minutes, and forty-one seconds.

Excision gives us a good cross-section of Nadja’s broad array of doom/drone stylings. It opens with “Jornada del Muerto”, not the strongest track on the album, but a crushingly heavy piece of glacial doom that is as close to SunnO))) as Nadja have ever been. “Perichoresis” has a more progressive approach, moving through stages of ambient, post-sludge drone and noise. This song is truly epic and melancholy and is a pretty damn good example of how powerful Nadja can be. “Spahn” provides a more stripped-back, deep space excursion. “Kriplyana” is pure ambient drone, sharing more in common with the likes of Gavin Bryars than doom metal. Swapping CDs “Autosomal (Version 2)” builds up with ten minutes of snail-paced post-rock before a dream-like tide of swirling distorted doom gushes forth, a tsunami in slow-motion. On “Kitsune (Fox Drone)” we bathe in heavenly static; this track is trademark Nadja droning bliss. “Autosomal (Version 3)” is more ambient drone, this time on the noisy, psychedelic side, excellent for a twisted chillout. with “Clinging to the Edge of the Sky” concludes with fifteen minutes of peaceful post rock.

There are no outstanding criticisms to make; it’s overly long and the songs don’t join together at the seams naturally, but that’s to be expected from this kind of compilation. Standalone, each song is pretty strong but I think this is really meant for fans only, specifically ones who missed out on the limited edition original pressings of this music. If you want to be introduced to Nadja, I’d recommend starting somewhere a little more spectacular like Corrasion, or Skin Turns to Glass. Excision is still a quality buy if you find it cheap or something, though.

In short: It’s not an essential Nadja album, but for the fan who wants to delve deeper into their massive body of work, Excision is a worthwhile way to relax in style for a while.

Standout tracks: “Perichoresis”, “Autosomal (Version 3)”

Score: 7.5

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Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II

For those of you who don’t know, the new Earth is a two part album that was recorded in the same session during 2011, but the second half was released at the beginning of 2012. This time, Carlson’s guitar work is supported by Davies on drums who has been with him since Hex, but now he has a new bassist (Karl Blau) and a cellist (Lori Goldston) on his side as well. Most people who are interested in this have probably heard it by now, but if you’ve been stuck on a desert island for a while, know that there is no direct metal approach made on the Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light. A drone metal legend has firmly shifted ground to drone blues/country. Not a hint of distortion can be heard on these two albums, and yet somehow (surely not just through mental connotation) the metal is there, rising to the surface in bubbles that never quite burst, a palpable yet hidden presence.

The two parts of Angels… definitely form a whole, but one wonders how it is meant to be listened to, as altogether the album would run for one hour and forty-five minutes (part II being the shorter, forty-five minute segment), which is a lengthy haul even for a hardened drone fan. Or we can listen to them separately, which seems strange as the two albums are clearly parts of a whole. More than likely it’s meant to be listened to any way the listener wants, and my preferable choice would probably be to listen only to part I, as this second offering seems meandering and less-than-profound some of the time, especially on the first two tracks. After that weak beginning, Davies hits the drums again and it returns to the same style of repetitive blues motifs that were so lovely on the first half. The last three tracks are nice. Earth is really, really chilled out these days. This is music to splay yourself out on the beanbag to with a small bottle of whiskey and a ponderous mind. And it is good. But unfortunately, I felt it was an unnecessary continuation of part I that does not have the same level of epic melodic quality. This is probably because the album loses its momentum on “His Teeth Old Brightly Shine”, a track on which the guitar noodling frankly irritated me (but not in the way of the whinging cheese solos that were the only downfall of ‘08’s The Bees Made Honey…). As the album is essentially comparative to its first half, this pitfall pretty much sends it into the limbo of albums you kind of like but will never listen to again. Carlson and Davies play brilliantly, and Goldston’s cello subtly supports the band with a velvet undercurrent, but in my opinion they should have crammed this all down into a single album which could have run for an hour and ten minutes easily.

In summary: Not as good as its first half, and so similar that there is no real reason to put this in your stereo a second time, but viewed in its own light it’s a pretty decent little piece of country drone.

Standout tracks: "Rakehell"

Score: 6.5

Nadja & Vampillia - The Primitive World

It’s probably not news to you that Nadja are a very prolific band. In ten years they have released twenty-nine full-length albums, eight EPs, and nine splits. A large amount of their output has been very high quality, but like most bands that create such quantities of music, once they get into the swing of making and living off of music it’s difficult for them to stop doing it, even if they have no fresh ideas. For a few years there it seemed like Nadja were making too many unnecessary collaborations with artists whose music was not necessarily a good pairing, making uninspired ambient or post-rock wanderings that had only small servings of character. A lot of people ceased to pay attention to them, but I’m pleased to say it’s time to start listening to Nadja again. This newest release, The Primitive World, sees the Canadian duo pair-up with eleven-piece Japanese “brutal orchestra”, Vampillia, a strange and indulgent new underground act that seems to be causing an awful lot of head-scratching around the place right now. Check out their extremely bizarre and hilarious film clip for the song “Heyoah” and see what I mean (don’t let the Sigh flashbacks irk you, this is nothing like it!).

The entire album centers around a massive track called “Icelight”, and this song is going to ruin your day in the best kind of way. It is a twenty-three minute beast of a drone metal track – slow, atmospheric, dark and long. It is filled with classic Nadja static, that kind of soft static you could drown in, and also: It’s totally metal, sporting pained roars and elephant heaviness. The other four tracks build up and release on either side of this monster; the first and last tracks are piano filler, “Northern Lights” is a triumphant prelude to darkness (think Jesu), and “Anesthetic Depth” is an ambient cool-down after the drone. Throughout all of this, Vampillia provide tastefully placed piano, strings and probably other things that do not intrude on the power of the drone, yet manage to sprinkle some melody on top of the sound torrent.

The Primitive World is a return to metal and form for Nadja, and a good thing for an as-of-yet-not-completely-accepted group like Vampillia, especially one who are trying to promote a very diverse image. If you are not a Nadja fan, this is a very good place to begin (amongst others), and for the fans already out there this regression will be welcomed. Let’s hope both bands realize what they’ve done and take notes for their futures.

In short: Great little drone metal album with powerful riffs and loaded sounds. Finally, another good Nadja work to add to the collection.

Standout tracks: “Icelight” of course

Score: 9.0