There are two kinds of strangers: the ones who arrive that way, and the ones whose shadows lengthen over the course of time. On the title track of Marissa Nadler‘s 7th album, we learn which of the two this record is primarily concerned with. “I am a stranger now,” she sighs, and it’s that temporal qualifier tacked on the end which pushes the album’s themes beyond an implied ending, and towards the wreckage left in its wake. What follows, both lyrically and musically, is a hugely accomplished addition to her brand of saloon-at-the-end-of-the-world Americana, and a worthy follow-up to 2014’s sumptuous July.
Matthew Neale 