Album Review: Marissa Nadler - For My Crimes

Separation enforced through touring led Marissa Nadler to stockpile three times as many songs as she needed for her eighth album before another burst of inspiration led to writing an extra batch one week before hitting the studio. The final selections here represent some of Nadler’s strongest songwriting to date.

At her darkest, the title track is a plea to be forgotten, written from the perspective of a death row inmate, where Angel Olsen’s backing vocals float across the chorus like a phantom. Nadler hails from Boston, Massachusetts but her voice is pure Southern Gothic here, combined with the soft strum of her guitar and the subtle, enchanting arrangements that sweep over the listener like a ball gown over a cold marble floor.

But it’s the ultra-specific details that imprint Nadler’s stories into the mind like ink into paper; I Can't Listen To Gene Clark Anymore a beautiful example of how a song can become unbearable because of an association with an ex, while on Said Goodbye To That Car she sings out her departed vehicle’s final odometer reading like it’s an epitaph.