Marissa Nadler

For her fourth full-length album, Little Hells, Marissa Nadler has written ten new songs that are in no small part indebted to Americana and roots music. Her songwriting, fluttering vocals and guitar-picking regularly evoke those influences, and yet not until the title track, fourth on the album, does anything sound like it belongs in that idiom. Instead, Nadler and her producer Chris Coady have created an atmospheric, occasionally meditative album in which the songs themselves are but one element of its distinctive, mournful sound.

Of the many influences listed on the artist’s MySpace page, perhaps David Lynch is the most poignant towards understanding Nadler’s aesthetic. Not that her work evokes his surrealistic nightmare systems (it doesn’t), but in the same way that Lynch relies as heavily on atmosphere as on narrative, so do these tracks, using the songs as only a starting point. The songwriting is typically subsumed into the melancholic, droning, and slowly unfolding soundscape, the effect being always more visceral than emotional. Much of the effect derives from Nadler’s voice, almost always hidden behind the echo of reverb but also controlled and restrained, never overly emotive and always imbued with a hint of unspoken fear or sadness. And her high harmony vocal, used to great effect on “Rosary” and “Brittle, Crushed, & Torn,” only reinforces the sense of ghostly regret that pervades the album.

For songs that could easily be performed solo at a coffee shop, the instrumentation and arrangements are well-considered additions. The lap steel, played on three tracks by Dave Scher, is itself mixed in reverb and floats over the arrangements, a creepy subtext to Nadler’s vocal laments. Or consider opener “Heart Paper Lover” which, in lieu of acoustic guitars or pianos, is played on Wurlitzer and Theramin. Even the less-orchestrated tracks, like “The Whole is Wide,” use a forlorn, pressing organ sound to compliment the song. There are some moments, particularly on tracks that use drums, when songs give way to band interplay, but these too work in service of the aesthetic rather than as distraction from it.

It’s an effective and original approach to these songs, to treat them more as a means toward an imprecise mourning rather than as stories or personal revelations. In that way, the album has to it a poetic quality in that it never really varies its tone or atmosphere but rather stays mired in a specific elegiac state, exploring the nuances and complications of that singular sensation. It’s a testament to Nadler’s understated songwriting and strong fluttery vocals that the album rarely grows repetitive but remains compelling, effective and really damned sad.