Marissa Nadler followed a basic formula for her three previous albums. Her guitar provided a simple but hypnotic melody that combined with her ethereal voice to spin tales of fictional lovelorn maidens (see her recurring character Mayflower May) or adapt the poetry of the greats (see the Edgar Allen Poe inspired “Annabelle Lee” from Ballads of Living and Dying). Sometimes the formula would shake up a little; the stories would change, piano or mandolin would substitute or accompany. Yet for the most part there was little variation to the make-up of those albums. And truthfully, the formula worked. Each of Nadler’s three previous releases is a proficient display of beauty through simplicity.

With the old “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” sensibility, Nadler very easily could have made Little Hells in the same vain as her past work. But she now takes a giant leap forward in her development as an artist with the most daring, versatile, and fully organic album of her career. There are a lot of elements never heard before on any Marissa Nadler song: the guitars are plugged in, there are more layers of instrumentation, and Nadler is speaking to us as opposed to speaking to characters. With a full set of back-up musicians and producer Chris Coady onboard, Little Hells gives us an evolved songstress that is just as — maybe even more — haunting as before.

The new elements on the album are heard right away. “Heartpaper Lovers” opens with a synthesized piano and added background effects. One thing definitely hasn’t changed, that being Nadler’s ghostly vocals that sound like they could come from an ancient elf in a Tolkien novel. “You were gone, and I was gone. All of the flowers were dead and gone,” she sings over the barren melody. While that beginning still gives us the typical folk pace, the track “Mary Come Alive” is by far the most up-tempo song to ever come from Nadler. With it’s combination of traditional and synthesized drums the song achieves something that no one would have ever though possible, you actually start to nod your head to the beat. By no means is it a club track, but definitely something that can get people moving. This is uncharted land for someone who in the past only moved at a tortoise’s pace.

Even with leaps and bounds throughout the album, the strongest moments come from Marissa Nadler reverting back to the acoustic songbird. The title track features nothing more than a simple guitar cord looping through a church organ and the serenaded fable of she who “lives in a dark cloud of little hells.” The following track “Ghost & Lovers” is equally as minimal and could give any listener the chills with those whispers of, “Ghost and lovers will haunt you for a while.”

“River of Dirt” again picks up the pace and can sum up the album best. While I doubt that Marissa Nadler will next take a dramatic turn and make happy pick-me-up tunes, Little Hells does represent at the least a shift to music you can smile to. As she sings, “Take me back to the river of dirt,” over a steady rhythm fit for a cowboy mosey, her lyrics remain relations of despair no matter how much instrumentation she puts behind them. In the end the album is a gorgeous composition that still succeeds because of beautiful simplicity.