Review of Nadja - Touched

Synopsis:

To quote a friend of mine, “Listening to Nadja is like being rocked to sleep by a grizzly bear”. Perfect (Thanks to Skeletor over at the Digitalmetal.com forums for that one).

Review:

For those of you unfamiliar with Canada’s Nadja (a situation I highly recommend you rectify), they play a form of doomy, ambient atmospheric yet beautiful drone not unlike Pelican (on Xanex), God Speed You! Black Emperor, Godflesh, The Angelic Process, Monarch! (without PMS) and others of that ilk, and Touched is a slightly altered re-issue of their 2002 debut.

With ten albums and loads of splits under their belt, Nadja are now master of their trance inducing craft, but Touched shows a rougher, more caustic, though still transcendental Nadja in their formative years. Though the template consists of the same uber longs songs full of deep, lengthy lulls of ambience swirling around droning three note riffs of sonic lethargy, the presentation is a bit more rough and primal than say, Bodycage, though still as evocatively heavy and dreamlike at times.

The five tracks (an needless four-minute untitled track is the bonus on this version) are what you’d expect from the genre--10-18 minutes expositions of taut, crumbling, feedback drenched slo mo landslides (“Mutagen”), occasional dreamy chanted vocals and whispers with ample builds and atmospheres (“Stays Demons”) that will drain you of your will to stay awake, other than the sudden turbulent injections of thunderous feedback and percussion. The megalithic, now 18 minute (up four minutes from the original 2002 version) “Incubation/Metamorphosis” is the nerve deadening, shimmering, doomy centerpiece of the album that will leave you in a drooling musical only to be awakened by the calamitous start of “Flowers of Flesh”.

As with most drone/doom/ ambient, Nadja are an acquired taste but a taste that’s easier to acquire than regular atonal drone, due to the injections of atmosphere and actual riffs amid the rending cascade of drone. Either way, Nadja are one of the very best at what they do and I recommend you check out their extensive and brilliant discography.

Release Details

Nadja

Touched

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