ALBUM REVIEW: Luminous Rot – Nadja

Formed of the duo of multi-instrumentalist Aidan Baker and bassist Leah Buckareff, NADJA are a very difficult band to pigeonhole, at least in any way that does justice to their sound. Often described as ambient doom, dreamsludge, or metalgaze, their sound is deliberately ambiguous, eschewing traditional structures for far more freeform, wandering compositions. It’s a sound they’ve honed since 2005 and now return with their latest release Luminous Rot, to continue their slow, inexorable march forward. 

Fittingly-titled first track Intro does just that, a swell of feedback and ambience opening before cascading drums. While not necessarily oppressive in its walls of noise, its aim is to swallow listeners whole into its depths. The squalls of feedback do grow more engrossing, more primal and urgent almost, as the piece progresses and the thunder of the drums draws ever closer. While it doesn’t exactly soften in its final moments, it does become less urgent as it shifts into the title track. 

This initially opens with a solitary guitar motif that soon lurches into a churning, industrial-tinged chug. This is perhaps the first point at which they could be called doom, while the vocals are from the reverb-laden, almost ethereal, occult style school of thought. Underneath the vocals, the patterns are repetitive as if seeking to induce a trancelike state. It’s easy to see here and throughout where the comparisons to shoegaze are made, with their effects-laden approach that certainly enjoys gazing towards its navel. 

Cuts On Your Hands is again opened by squalling guitar, though with some moments of quiet almost creeping in before being wrestled back into the mire. The band heavily rely on distortion and electronics effects; less glitching but more geared towards creating an ambience of earthiness to ground the album. Cuts like Fruiting Bodies lean into the gothier elements present throughout Luminous Rot, though slowed to something somehow even less hurried than a funerary crawl. It’s like SISTERS OF MERCY fed through NADJA’s own, peculiar brand of experimentalism and doom. 

Thematically, the band examine notions of ‘first contact’ and difficulties with how we might recognise alien intelligence and this can be heard in the multi-dimensional, cosmic spaces their music inhabits. There isn’t a centrepiece of the album so to speak, more that each track stands as its own exploration of the themes, before melting away into the next. 

Simply because of the style NADJA play, this does lead to a significant amount of blending; tracks bleed into each other and it isn’t necessarily clear when one ends and the next begins. Whether that’s a positive or negative will largely depend on your tolerance for such dense, exploratory and experimental music.

If tightly-defined structures, clear beginning and end points and choruses are your thing then Luminous Rot will do absolutely nothing for you, nor will it really win new fans over to their way of thinking. However, if ambient doom – and that perhaps, along with shoegaze is the best way of describing the duo – is your thing, then this is a densely layered and intense listen that will draw you in and keep you in its rotten embrace. 

Rating: 7/10

Luminous Rot is out now via Southern Lord.

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