Bodycage

It's strange, but there's few other bands like Nadja. To me, at least, it seems like a logical progression of drone (Get some drone doom, add heaps of shoegaze, and drop a layer of fuzz on the whole thing), but the only other bands I know that are doing this kind of stuff are The Angelic Process, Methadrone, and to some extent, Jesu.

It's a shame, because it's an extremely good formula, as shown in albums like this.

The layering and composition of these three tracks are deceptively complex. Clinodactyl starts off all quiet, and it doesn't really explode until the ten minute mark, but you wouldn't know it. The build is seemless, the drum programming subtle and brilliant. I don't think I've ever heard a more exciting ten minute long build. When the song gets all loud, that's when you fully realise the potential of the dronegaze genre (Just made it up then.. thought it sounded good!). There's bleary, melodic synths everywhere, the guitars crunch away in the background, all fuzzed out, downtuned and yet really melodic, and the distorted drums slowly crunch away. It gets even better when a more 'standard' riff comes in, with Aidan Baker's airy, whispered vocals coming over the top. Finally, after 20 or so minutes of this, you're gasping for breath and completely overwhelmed. You've still got two songs to go though!

The next two songs aren't quite as good, but there's still plenty of excellence to be found here. Autosomal is really brutal and buzzy, with some 'bee swarm' guitars covering everything, accompanied by some delirious synths and more of that great drum programming. It's strangely chaotic, noisy, and still quite serene, in a totally odd way. Still, the ten minutes feels a lot longer. We're then left with Ossification, which sounds like the first song, but with most of the guitars stripped away. While I would say it's a patience tester, I imagine most people who read this like drone, and thus have plenty of patience, so I can't see it being that big of a problem.

While I can't say I'd listen to the last two tracks as much as the first, it's still really enjoyable. Nadja is perfect for those times really late at night where you just want the deepest, most other-wordly music you can find, and that's exactly what this is. Drone fans should buy this now, and anyone with a bit of patience should love this album.