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Nadja > Under the Jaguar Sun > Reviews > wippernaut
Nadja - Under the Jaguar Sun

The LP/digital version is the way to go. - 80%

wippernaut, November 11th, 2012

Originally Under the Jaguar Sun was released as a 2XCD. The reason behind the 2XCD release was the album was broken down into two separate CDs, one being the more "metallic" CD, and the other the more "ambient" CD, and in order to listen to the album in whole, you have to sync them together, or play them at the same time...

If you listen to the CDs separately they're both very boring, and I imagine trying to play them together would be a pain (other bands have done this before and pulled it off well, such as Neurosis, but Nadja fails on this one). Though about a year later Nadja re-released it on vinyl and digitally (through Broken Spine's bandcamp), and in one whole song, Chalchiuhtlicue, which I think is a great song that has most of Nadja's styles. I have no idea why they did the 2XCD release before; the vinyl/digital version works so much better.

Anyway, Chalchiuhtlicue is very drone and doom influenced and one of Nadja's more "metallic" releases. You have pleanty of heavy boderline Swans/Godflesh-like moments, to the blissed out "doomgaze what Nadja is famous for (Doomgaze as in doom metal and shoegaze). The song/album is kind of like a storm and is divided up in three parts, the calm, the storm and the clear. The first part is the "calm", very mellow which slowly builds and becomes more extreme and is the beginning of the storm. The second part rolls in with and continues with the storm which dissipates and gets ready for the clear. The final part couldn't be more light-like and clear, though the music is heavily layered and dense but it's rather enlightening. A good amount of the "enlightenment" is from the sitar which is one of my favorite instruments and fits in the third part of the song perfectly.

While I think the music is great and all but the production and the drum programming is one of the worst of Nadja's releases. Chalchiuhtlicue sounds too organic to have a drum machine and Nadja sounds great with a drummer, such as on their album Desire in Uneasiness and their latest Dagdrøm. The production for both of those albums is perfect for Nadja and hopefully they will re-record this album like what they did for Touched and Skin Turns to Glass.