Marissa Nadler, St John on Bethnal Green, gig review: 'Surreal, dreamlike narrative'

Marissa Nadler (Ebru Yildiz)

In the two years since 2014’s lugubrious, autobiographical July, Marissa Nadler returns to London with songs from her new album Strangers.

Diving straight into the surreal, dreamlike narrative, Nadler stands at the altar dressed in black and delivers her vocals with hints of 60s folk, Hope Sandoval's huskiness and the woozy, American-Gothic tones of Lana Del Rey.

Backed by the support act Wreckmeister Harmonies, Nadler creates a cast of characters stuck between life and death, indecision and inherent faults, pondering their existential crises with a nod to Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel.

On “Janie in Love” – tonight's standout song – the titular anti-heroine wants to “blow up everything”. Scraping guitars surround Nadler’s dreamy vocals as she delivers them with the eeriness of Julee Cruise in Twin Peaks.

“Divers of the Dust”, recalls the ghostliness of Mazzy Star as Nadler layers hypnagogic imagery of waves pulling cities into the ocean. Built around a tinkling piano refrain, Nadler’s voice rises above the melody to ask “How did we end up here and how did we meet?”

Though the songs themselves are strong, tonight is let down by the big, fat silences we get with Nadler tuning her guitar after each song. Having only brought one guitar for the tour, there are stops and starts throughout.

The impressive songs from Strangers prove that this is by far Nadler’s best work. Tonight however, the sparing instrumentation hardly translates the vividness of such an outstanding record.