The Deal: Zedek returns to the rock with first full band since Come era.
The Good: With her carton-a-day voice, viola-powered slow-burners, and heart-rended narratives, Thalia Zedek’s solo material was built for late-night listening. But strap some thundering bass and crashing piano chords to it, add a little Bush-inspired paranoia, and what emerges from the candle-lit shadows is this explosive record, the best thing Zedek’s done since she and Chris Brokaw tore shit up in Come. Disc-opener “Next Exit” sets the new template, its first 90 seconds opening in Zedek’s familiar mournful Gypsy crawl, before escalating the tension with each angry verse on the back of Winston Braman’s bass and Mel Lederman’s piano comping. Almost every cut winds up in incandescent crescendos (except for those that seem to begin there), drummer extraordinaire Daniel Coughlin’s cymbal crashes and press-rolls often driving bass, piano, guitar, and David Michael Curry’s E-bow-like viola lines over the edge. Digging into old emotional wounds (as on the visceral work-out “Body Memory”) or decrying the political landscape (“Begin to Exhume”), the music shares the same dark hue of acts like The Black Heart Procession or Nick Cave. Like the latter, Zedek’s voice is where everything begins and ends; range limitations rendered moot by the emotion pouring forth like primal scream catharsis. Surrendering to it is equally liberating.
The Bad: The horns on “lower alston” don’t really add much.
The Verdict: If you’re down with the dark, impassioned rock, you’ll be way down with this.
This article appears in May 14-20, 2008.
