Marissa Nadler's fourth album, Little Hells, might be a travel advertisement. The Boston musician's voice, two parts banshee to one part angel, could lead an otherwise sane person into deadly flames and abandoned well bottoms, rapt and entranced.
On the opening track, lilting the question "Heart paper lover / Are you gone again? / Are you mine again?" to a minor-key melody, she collects a bit of psychedelic stardust while channeling what could be a Depression-era funeral song.
The tracks that follow are a bit more upbeat tempo-wise but equally dark and dreamy. "Rosary" and "Mistress" recall bits of Mazzy Star's Fade Into You, reflected through teardrops and razor blades, while "Loner" sounds like CocoRosie and Neko Case trapped inside the haunted house of Neil Gaiman's Coraline. Throughout, the magic of Travis-style picking swirls with Wurlitzer organ, theremin, lap steel and well-placed reverb, spinning tales of love and death and dreams lost, found and lost again.
