Exquisitely delicate, dark and beautiful, a dream-like, haunting 10th studio LP by the Nashville singer-songwriter across gothic folk whispering soundscapes of meticulous guitar finger-picking, Hammond organ and synths, and lyrics variously inhabiting characters from an airborne Cessna, to a spaceship, a getaway car, and alternate dimensions. “Psychic vibrations and new radiations have taken their toll on me,” she sings on the title track. Nadler’s style and pace is generally uniform across the album, but varies the shade with stark storytelling, mixing menacing lyrics in verses with sunnier chorus melodies. Such contrasts are particularly true the gently terrifying Hatchet Man, in which narratives are subverted, and, as she describes “a sinister character brings a woman home—not for romance, but to murder her—while the narrator, his partner, is made to witness it unfold. Ultimately, the storyteller escapes, adrenaline flooding her veins.” The scene is vividly and chillingly portrayed with “the outline of my hatchet man / Is backlit in the door / I wish I could have saved her / As the engines roar”, and the story foretold with the gripping opening line: “The angel made a duet / And he made me watch.” Opener It Hits Harder meanwhile has a theme of escape in the verses and heartbreak in the chorus, imagination taking off with the aircraft: “I will fly around the world just to forget you / Try not to hit the mountains as I pass through / Blinded by sandstorms, no sight of the land below / My little Cessna’s due west, and I had to go,” and yet “Everything dies, it's just the way / Look for the light starting to break / It hits harder.”
Light Years, a beautiful lament, also sees the imagination lyrically take flight, but in doing so, also explores the theme of fading love: “Back in the day, you were all the rage / when you could still hypnotize her. Rockets and planes, and through hurricanes / fused to the sight of her fire.” Here the autoharp adds an ethereal, sparkling quality to the music, and the chorus captures the slow, quiet death of a once-bright connection: “You used to see light years inside her / you used to be right there beside her”. Other highlights include the woozy do‑op of Bad Dreams Summertime; the gently gorgeous lamenting minimalism of You Called Her Camellia (“This wasn’t the deal! (Her fading away)”. To Be the Moon King, meanwhile, inspired by the father of modern rocketry, follows a man writing codes backwards in mirrors and tinkering with backyard rockets to reach “Saturn’s rings, burning.” Otherwordly to a new level. Finally comes closing track Sad Satellite, where she admits, “I mistook you for the sky,” leaving us suspended between longing and release. An album that can be enjoyed sonically, as dreamy vocals and instrumentation washes over you, but also, when digging deeper into the rich mysteries of lyric, much more can be unearthed. Like onyx or obsidian, a polished gemstone of finely crafted, melancholy beauty. Out on Bella Union.
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