Nearly CD Review
Nearly
Reminder
(Kufala)
Frequent Trent Reznor accomplice Jerome Dillon shows up as Nearly, a less-industrial but still synth-friendly mood monger with guests including Claudia Sarne and Greg Dulli.
At the end of “One Day I Was Gone,” the instrumental lead-in track on Reminder, the sound of someone quickly sucking air through their lips pierces the speakers, as if preparing to drop a conversational bomb — it never comes. It encapsulates Reminder, a tense arrangement of interrelated sequences without resolution. Sarne’s nasal tone occasionally recalls Horace Andy’s early work for Massive Attack; her wry vibrato impossibly darkens that atmosphere further. Sometimes the somber orchestration weighs like a leaden cloak (“Prins Hendrick”) and Greg Dulli sounds like he’ll need help from more than one god when he guests on a reworking of The Afghan Whigs’ “Step Into The Light,” but Reminder is an example of when the mood strikes. And strikes Nearly, it does.
— Kevin Keegan
