Nadja – When I See the Sun Always Shines on TV
The End Records (4/28/09)
Drone metal / Metalgaze
You know those people who always seem to find a deeper meaning in everything? (“Everything is art, and nothing is in vain!”) They started in high school by taking a photo class and listening to The Cure, and from there escalated into constantly working on their “art,” saying they are just so busy because of the new installation piece they’re working on. Which is bullshit, because it is probably just a piece of sheet metal with the word “LOVE” cut into it. Get it? Metal is hard and sharp, the opposite of love… or is it?
Anyway, those are the fucks who will enjoy this album.
Nadja is the lovechild of Canadian duo Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff, as their vitriol on music listeners’ ears began in 2003, and eleven albums later, here we are with When I See the Sun Always Shines on TV, a cover album. The couples’ style has been called “ambient doom” and has been noted as combining elements of metal, shoegazer, ambient, post-rock, experimental and neo-classical.
When I See the Sun Always Shines on TV is a collection of eight cover tracks by bands including My Bloody Valentine, Swans, Slayer, a-Ha, Elliot Smith and the aforementioned Cure. I know, this sounds great! And if I told what tracks they are it would be even more exciting, but I’m not, because listening to this album three times I still have yet to hear the songs I was promised.
The album starts out heavy, scratchy and distorted. This definitely has potential, like an M83 type vibe, but after the first five minutes, the realization hits that this is just a bunch of messy-ass noise. Realization: It’s not awesome, but I still have the whole album in front of me…
Oh wait, I am on track three already, but had no idea because it all sounds exactly the fucking same! Normally when a cover album is made, the artist takes their own route with the tunes, making it their own. Yet the listener knows that it is a cover, recognizing the original song buried in there. That’s the point of a cover, to pay tribute to the artists that have been an inspiration, not take the song, eat it, but later realize it’s not sitting well. Then your hand goes around your mouth to try and hold back the surge of vomit that is coming. Too late, it’s squirting through the cracks in your fingers until it’s too much, and explodes everywhere into one of the most disgusting messes you have ever seen. Yeah, that’s this album.
The melodies can be heard, trying to come up for air, and every time you think it’s almost there, they are pulled back down, into the repetitiveness of the album. It all starts with My Bloody Valentine’s “Only Shallow”, but you wouldn’t know that unless you read the back of the case. After that track, the first time you hear anything that differentiates the songs is with Slayer’s “Dead Skin Mask”—the only reason being that clearly it is a heavy track, and that is the only clue.
I am not sure why Nadja even bothered putting a vocal track down, as it basically sounds like someone talking extremely slow, through a very long tube, far away, and possibly underwater. The vocals add absolutely nothing, except once they did help me determine that I was listening to “Needle in the Hay”. And I don’t even want to begin picking apart “Long Dark Twenties” (Kids in the Hall), as it would not end well at all and is making me queasy just thinking about it.
Overall this album is a pretty difficult listen, as it requires wading through all the bullshit just to get a glimpse of a song, and then it’s just not worth it. The set on this album could seriously pass as one long track, as there really is nothing to break up the doldrums (which set in around the first track) along the way. I am still confused on why a band would even attempt to make a cover album, unless their plan was to completely mutilate the songs, almost eliminating any semblance of the original song altogether.
The one thing that kept me entertained for a good two minutes was the booklet—no words, just drawings for each track, correlating the picture with the song. But this is not something that even comes close to making the album worth buying.
