BLACK COBRA
Feather & Stone
(At a Loss)

GRAVE IN THE SKY
Cutlery Hits China: English
for the Hearing Impaired
(Heart & Crossbone)

GHOSTLIMB
S/T
(Self-Released)

THE PLIGHT
Black Summer
(Visible Noise)

NADJA
Radiance of Shadows
(Alien 8)

OBSTRUKTOR
Dead On Arrival 

(Self-Released)

MARBLEBOG
Forestheart

(Autopsy Kitchen)

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The phrase ‘glacial speed’ shall acquire new meaning now. Or it should be reinterpreted as to simply read ‘listen to Nadja’. Because Radiance of Shadows moves slowly, and is a limbless mass of dense sound that, though seemingly inert, moves places nevertheless and on its way picks up heavy masses of debris which then uses to demolish everything on its path until it acquires such ridiculous volume it suffers an inevitably, though thoroughly, timely death. The prophetical first track “Now I Am Become Death, The Destroyer of Worlds” starts from scratch; from null and inexistent moves with giant thumps and static-y strings and only stretches in size. Its massive volume unable to move dynamically, it sort of sounds like an extra large Jesus & Mary Chain Honey-era tune as interpreted by machines in the dead of winter.  This is frosty stuff all the way, with the band dropping a twenty-four minute long megaton bomb. It’s not an exaggeration that Radiance of Shadows sounds bleak like the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. 

Because of its more passive constitution second track “I Have Tasted the Fire Inside Your Mouth” is more on the shoegaze side. The doom-like quality of “Now I Am Become, The Destroyer of Worlds” is almost completely absent and the ethereal half-ghost/half angel-like vocals of also bassist Leah Buckareff approximate Nadja to the dream-like soundscapes of My Bloody Valentine. At this point Radiance of Shadows is passive and seems to offer lighting glimmers of light. Oddly, towards the fourteenth minute this song evolves into a sort of a space jazz jam, with layers of drone coming to surface slowly but surely. The songs seems to hit a roadblock towards the middle but with stuff this heavy and slow we know there ain’t no stopping and the song goes on well into the twenty-seven minute range.

As the closing third and final title track draws near, we are nothing but exhausted. The duo Nadja have served up enough music to drive one hundred stubborn dictators out of their palaces. But this is a different beast; shy strummed guitars go along nearly hushed vocals, repetitive mini blasts barely there in the background and the occasional full-blown explosion of sound bring about almost half an hour of very intense feedback and noise. It’s an amorphous beast we are in front of; impenetrable, it almost becomes unbearable around its twentieth minute, but the album’s excesses shall pose no obstacle for those used to any of today’s drone doom experimentalists.

Nadja has been putting out music since 2003 and in their short career have already released over ten recordings.    Nadja was initially the one man side project of experimental musician Aidan Baker, but in 2005 Leah Buckareff joined and thus Nadja became an official band with the ability of playing live. They actually have an upcoming one song album titled Bliss Torn From Emptiness coming out this year via the always exciting Profound Lore Records, proving that the union has not only doubled the sound and the ability to perform live but that prolificacy is not an issue.

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