Nadja - Skin Turns To Glass

by Tom Mendelsohn

The exact 100% opposite of Andrew WK

"Let’s say it’s not for everyone. Hell, let’s say it’s barely for anyone."

Nadja make self-described doom-drone metal. Sounds like an unpalatable concept, right? Well, that isn’t quite the case. It is a little bit rarefied – some would say impenetrable – and hooks are certainly thin on the ground, but really, it’s just shoegaze taken to its rather formidable logical conclusion: a proper wall of brutal sound.

The vibe is minimalist almost to the point of non-existence: it’s admirable in its stark, principled way, but it could also be accused of sounding like no more than the bits you hear in between the melodies on My Bloody Valentine records. Let’s say it’s not for everyone. Hell, let’s say it’s barely for anyone – it could well put off even pretty willing MBV-heads such is its sonic rigour.

The band is made up of a bloke with a beard, called Aidan Baker, and a lady with librarian glasses, called Leah Buckareff. They’re from Toronto, and they come across as VERY SERIOUS PEOPLE, much as you expect from anti-scene scene people. The band is hyper-prolific – wikipedia lists 12 studio and live albums from 5 years – but you get the impression that a Greatest Hits, such as it’d be, wouldn’t run to more than two discs (or, about six songs – they tend to go for duration over quantity).

It’s all very, very serious-sounding, like much post rock, but it probably matches only the likes of Godspeed for sheer po-faced-ness – not necessarily a bad thing, but not necessarily for a balmy summer’s romance, either.

As for an album verdict, well, we’re glad this sort of stuff exists, and we get a kind of grim satisfaction from listening to it for a bit, but we’d be a big liar if we said it didn’t become a bit of an ordeal to sit through nearly an hour of elongated chords stretched out over three songs. Consider this: the album is called 'Skin Turns To Glass' - fun-packed it is not. Put it this way, one would have to have a lot of chin scratching already under one's belt to ever consider becoming a trufan. We bet they’re out there.

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