Reviews list for Nadja - Thaumogenesis (2007)

Power metal may be where my heart lies, but I am in a rare drone metal and post-metal mood, and I plan on utilizing that as much as possible.  I previously detailed my venture into the catalog of Nadja, a Canadian band who helped make drone metal what it is, partially due to their heavily packed studio discography.  One of the more well-regarded one is the one-hour track, Thaumogenesis.  Hey, I've heard Bull of Heaven albums before.  I can take this.

At first, the album starts with a lightly more imaginative take on the tropes of drone metal, molding its dark and quite atmosphere with shifting moments of melancholy and surrealism.  Within the first ten minutes it had become more than an average drone album.  And eventually the surrealism and melancholy would occasionally mingle as the album's overall tone got louder and higher (slowly, though, as it should be).  And eventually, I felt sucked into another world as the atmosphere overpowered the living room.

When I checked the time, a half-hour had past.  But the beautiful thing is that it didn't FEEL like a half-hour; it felt closer to twenty minutes.  So if someone create slow music that makes time fly, you know he's doing a good job.  And by the halfway point, this dark and surreal experience turned into a choir of orchestral reverb slowly bringing out the most beautiful moments of the album before shifting into an almost demonic raspy siren of low-tuned guitars that would make my favorite sludge band Neurosis proud.  And the shift from one tone to another was seamless and without notice.  Genius work on their part.  Once this darker atmosphere slowly shifted its focus from the guitar riff to the atmosphere (once again, slowly), the album became a true testament to emotion once again.  And after they go back to the riff focus, somehow it goes even lower than low, toning down to a hellish vibe before resorting to mellow acoustic guitar, almost like an attempt to comfort someone after descending to hell, and turning into a piece of ambiance filling the room yet again.

I'm gonna be honest, if there was a drone album I'd recommend as a starting point for exploring the genre, this would likely be it.  I found myself really enjoying this.  And yes, I prefer the album I heard last night when I was tired, Truth Becomes Death, but Thaumogenesis delivers on its good with a great deal of slow-moving experimentation, making this an effective drone album in the end.  It takes a special drone album to get a recommendation from me, and this album gets better as it goes along.  I can't say I'm a drone metal fan, but this is one of the two albums that I can say made me a Nadja fan.