"The beautiful, sad love songs on Marissa Nadler's tremendous sophomore effort The Saga of Mayflower May are surprisingly even better than those on last year's widely acclaimed Ballads of Living and Dying. Her mysterious voice...is gorgeous and evocative, especially when it's layered in multi-tracked harmony. She may be a contemporary folkie, but she seems somewhat removed from the current trends...there's something a lot more classic and old-fashioned about her approach, which makes The Saga of Mayflower May seem quite a bit more timeless than many of the other records that have been coming out of this genre." - OTHER MUSIC "Marissa Nadler's emotional vibration of a voice, drawing comparisons as wide as Karen Dalton, Judy Dyble and Hope Sandoval, shimmers over cyclical Leonard Cohen-esque finger picked compositions for acoustic guitar, the proceedings fleshed out by tasteful use of organ, chimes and recorder." - COMES WITH A SMILE
"Another captivating collection of songs steeped in the melancholy of distant, half-forgotten passion, doomed love affairs, and various crimes of the heart...an enthralling album." - PITCKFORKMEDIA
Hailed as a smoky chanteuse both sultry and captivating, Marissa Nadler's songs are mostly mournful dirges and melancholic ballads. Delving into influences of old-timey Americana folk, Portuguese fado, psychedelia and country, the songwriting is gripping and unique. Pursuing the persona poem, most of the songs are stories of tragic deaths, forbidden fates, jilted love affairs and stormy suicides, as well as some introspective first-person songs. In concert, the melodrama is obvious, each performance is dripping with vaudevillian nostalgia. Nadler's intricate fingerstyle guitar comes through on six-string, twelve-string, banjo, ukelele, and autopharp. Her voice is velvety, resonant and soaring with ethereal reverberations.
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