Marissa Nadler at Saint Vitus
Well now, apparently our local heavy metal mecca has a mellow side. Marissa Nadler's music is melancholy and gothick and fits quite nicely with the overall theme of the bar. Still, I'm so used to seeing metal guys rocking out on that stage (didn't LA Guns just play there?) that this was a bit of an odd experience.
Marissa Nadler is sort of the opposite of a metal guy. They both sing about love, but she sings about love which has passed, love which she wanted to last. Metal guys sing about love in the future, that evening specifically, and how long it's going to last. Some of those metal guys are silly and implausible people (see LA Guns), Marissa Nadler is neither of those things. She sounds honest when she sings about things which are just a little too painful to address directly. Despite the distancing veneer of poetry the feelings she sings about seem authentic. Her guitar and other instruments stay int he background, rarely taking the focus off those words. She adds just enough music to give her songs a heartbeat but the lyrics are the heart. Surely she is a poet as much as a musician, and she's quite good at it too.
Posted: 5/13/2013 at 8:36pm Tags: Marissa Nadler Saint Vitus
