It’s doubtful that Marissa Nadler ever sought to make her case for being America’s answer to Kate Bush, but that’s because she doesn’t have to—her music does it for her. Gifted with a mesmeric voice, a lyrical palette flecked with Plath and Poe, and a knack for writing mod-gothic melodies that linger like a forest mist before dawn, she manages to transform heartbreak and alienation into a perpetual state of bliss. Strangers, her second album with producer Randall Dunn (Earth, Wolves in the Throne Room, Black Mountain), expands on 2014’s starkly acoustic July with a more assertive backing band and an oceanic gyre of sound. From the spectral “Katie I Know,” with strings by Eyvind Kang (and a mood that harnesses the same creepiness of Portishead’s second album), to the majestic “Janie in Love,” with its apocalyptic refrain of “You touch and the earth will crumble/ You speak in hurricanes,” Nadler moves beyond the personal to a more allenveloping vision. It’s not an easy journey—Dunn’s production creates a haunting distance, reminiscent of Fred Foster’s work with Roy Orbison, that can leave you clawing for a way into Nadler’s world, but maybe that’s the point. We’re all strangers until we do the work to know what’s real.