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Nadja > Guilted by the Sun > Reviews
Nadja - Guilted by the Sun

One To Overlook. - 40%

Perplexed_Sjel, September 7th, 2008

‘Guilted By The Sun’ seems to be the black sheep of the Nadja works. Why? It’s hard to explain. I, for one, was shocked to realise that Nadja had decided to incorporate vocals into their work, but more so than that, I was shocked to realise that Nadja had condensed their music down to short songs, which doesn’t particularly suit their style. Nadja’s ‘Guilted By The Sun’ takes a rather odd back to basics route, but it also incorporates touches we’re, as fans, not used to. For example, the vocals. This one will always remain the black sheep because it’s an attempt at experimentation in an odd way which leaves more questions than it gives answers. There are certain things in life that can do this and come across as intelligent and interesting, but not in the case of ‘Guilted By The Sun’. The edge that surrounded the material, both previous to this effort and after it, just doesn’t seem to want to come out of it’s shell. The lackadaisical approach to this EP is too striking to overlook. The guitars are disappointing, the bass is overshadowed and the vocals are pointless.

This surreal edition to the Nadja collection offers a chance to see what Nadja would be like if their music included vocals on a regular basis. Whilst it is not unheard of for Nadja to include vocals in their work, it’s a rare occurrence and this EP shows why. To me, the vocals add no depth to the soundscapes that Nadja pathetically attempt to portray with the old school methods of down tuned distortion and repetitive drums. The vocals are inspiring, nor are they interesting. The basis of every great Nadja song is on atmosphere. Creating an atmosphere so huge, so emotional and so open to interpretation that one cannot help but fall head over heels in love with it, no matter how long the song is. ‘Guilted By The Sun’ offers us regulars a new slice of Nadja in the form of relatively short songs. Even the ten minute track is short in comparison to some of their other songs so how on earth would Nadja be able to produce the same effects they do through long and drawn out epics in a much shorter space of time? Well, the answer is, they don’t.

‘Guilted By The Sun’, in comparison, is disappointing because it doesn’t build the songs the way any regular full-length would do. Although certain aspects make include the soft touches or the fast starts that we’re used to, which are inspired by the glittering guitars and the kaleidoscopic keyboards, the impact isn’t as strong because the songs are played over too short a time to really evolve into magnificent pieces of work. Whilst Nadja songs do tend to drift in and out of ideas, these do not. ‘Guilted By The Sun’ drifts alright, but in no particular direction. The inclusion of the vocals makes me wonder what Nadja thought they had in store for us with this EP. Perhaps, by using vocals and shorter songs, Nadja assumed this would showcase to the world that their music could take different turns. Although it has done that effectively, it hasn’t been seen in a positive light. Directionless, pointless and rather uninteresting. As I’ve said on other reviews, the beauty in Nadja’s work is in allowing the audience to deter what the songs mean, but ‘Guilted By The Sun’ does not do this. It floats in mediocrity with it’s use of popular distortion and something cleaner passages which just seem out of place for once. Disappointing.

FAIL!! - 35%

caspian, July 29th, 2007

Whether the genre is metal or nu-jazz, it's common for the artiste to get tired of playing the same style of music after a while. So the artist will experiment with some new approaches to their music, or perhaps they'll try something completely different. Sometimes this works rather well- you've got Earth dropping the distorted guitars and going all country drone, you've got Ulver going from black metal to dark ambient/industrial/prog stuff, and there's Broadrick's change of style from Godflesh to Jesu. However, we all know that sometimes this doesn't work. There's Metallica's St.Anger. Celtic Frost's Cold Lake. Ulver's Kveldssanger (Jokes!). Anyway, the point is that while some experimentation is commendable, it often doesn't work. This is one of those records were there's been at attempt at change, and it falls flat on its face.

Basically, this seems to be Nadja's 'Back to Basics' album. Everything's stripped down and riff orientated. You may ask 'what's wrong with that?', and the answer is, a lot. Nadja's sound depends on it's huge amount of layers, and the sheer epicness and depth of composition within a Nadja song were what made this band so damn good.

Yeah, this album is really annoying and quite dull. There's a few good parts though. The middle two songs have some pretty huge riff. 'By' has a huge opening riff that brings to mind Celestial-era Isis, and 'The' has another big slice of riffage and some surprising double kick action in it. These two songs are enjoyable, sure, but they aren't anywhere near up to the standard set in, say, Bodycage or Thaumogenesis. There's little in the way of dynamics, and there's not really any of the beauty and subtlety that's in most Nadja tunes. It's just 10 minutes total of some big fuzzy riffing.

But we haven;t got to the other songs on this EP yet, and this is were Nadja go seriously off the deep end. The first song sounds like a slightly mediocre Nadja tune- some clean bits, some slo n lo riffing, lots of fuzziness (not that much though, as there's no synths..). It's at the six minute mark where things start to get lame though, as a mind numbing one chord riff repeats itself over a pretty fast drum beat. What was Aidan Baker thinking here? Sure, it's at least 4 times faster then the usual Nadja tempo, but it's not good. The final song isn't really any good either, and while there's no bizarre fast beats there's not really an atmosphere or good layering to be found here. Nope, we have some boring slo n lo doom that anyone could make.

This is quite a big disappointment. Nadja's had a great track record previously, but this one feels unfinished and just poorly written in general. Completists will want this, but no one else needs it. People new to Nadja should check out Bodycage or Touched, as they show what Nadja's capable of.