Thalia Zedek Band — Perfect Vision (Thrill Jockey)
Photo by Mark Shaw
Perfect Vision by Thalia Zedek Band
Thalia Zedek has never been afraid of the dark. Whether she is confronting the smoking ruins of 9/11, becrying the impact of forever wars on working class families or lashing out at a divided Trumpian America, she faces things head on. Her songs are topical in an oblique way, not ripped from the headlines so much as reflecting a corrosive ethos, and they stand up in their bleak, impassioned way, long after whatever inspired them has been supplanted by new horrors. Her latest album, Perfect Vision, is concerned with the COVID years, though also not. Like all her works, it exudes a brute, persistent strength that will not yield, no matter what happens.
As always, Zedek leads a really exceptional band, a collection of Boston lifers who pull together and pull apart with the worn-in expertise of people who have been playing together for a long time. She has Winston Braman on bass and David Michael Curry on viola, both essential to her surging, wailing sound. Gavin McCarthy, from E and, further back, Karate, is back again on drums, lending a punk violence and agitation to these songs, even in their more legato intervals. Mel Lederman is less of a consistent presence than in the past, though he does play some piano on “Binoculars.” And Karen Sarkisian, a pedal steel guitarist, plays with Zedek for the first time, making a real mark on opener “Cranes,” with her eerie, entwining twang.
“Cranes” is one of the album’s highlights, heavy and mournful but with a beautiful light flooding in from the direction of Sarkisian’s guitar. Zedek is in very good voice, here and elsewhere, rough and passionate but fully in control, and Curry’s viola, as always, echoes and reinforces her alto timbres. Thy are very good together.
The other big stand-out comes later, in “Queasy,” the disc’s hardest rocking, starkest cut. Here’s where McCarthy comes in handy, knocking the ironclad rhythm out in a sweaty fury, while Zedek’s guitar punches out a screaming mantra. The guitar lick is tight and repetitive and furious, locked in and unornamented. There’s a brief, blistering bass solo in this cut that strips away all else and lets you hear how Braman powers the band.
There are some flourishes here and there, a cello player on a couple of tracks, a trumpeter in the midst of “From the Fire,” but mostly this album presents an artist who has had all the time life affords to figure out how she wants to sound and all the support that long-time collaborators can bring to realizing her ideas. Every sound fits, without sounding in the least bit fussed over or premeditated. It’s more like a living organism than a band, bringing all systems together to sing its song, once again.
Did you ever believe that someone could be so perfect and cool and gorgeous like look at that face...he’s whiskey on ice he’s sunset and vine... i think i might just sink and drown and die
Fun things people who now have glasses but had perfect vision their entire life before this don’t talk about:
+Constantly getting stuck in your shirt when you go to take it off because you forgot to take your glasses off
+Walking into a shower with your glasses still on because you forgot they were there
+Waking up and wondering why you can’t read the words on your phone like you usually can
+Getting all ready for bed. . .everything is set up and perfect. . .you’re snuggled perfectly in your blanket. . .and then you roll on your side and suddenly something falls off your face and you think it’s a spider so you scream loudly and fall out of bed and almost die while your roommates just yell “Glasses or bug?” from across the house
+Looking directly downwards only to have your glasses fall directly off your face (which is especially fun if you work in a lab of any sort or the medical industry)
+Looking in a microscope and misjudging the distance and ending up smacking your glasses/head against the scope and cursing
+”Things in this mirror may be closer than they appear”
+”Things in this mirror may be further away than they appear”
+That blind spot in your peripheral that your glasses do not cover
+Having your glasses slide down to your nose so that you’re looking over the brim of them only to wonder why you can’t see
+Going a day without your glasses and adjusting to being able to read by closing one eye and then putting on your glasses the next day and wondering why closing one eye fucks with your vision
+Getting out of a cold car into a hot/humid environment
+Going to rub your eyes only to just smack your glasses into the bridge of your nose
+Boiling water without the vent on....
+Over the ear headphones. Ow.
Feel free to add your own!
(Note: I’ve had glasses for a couple years now, so they aren’t new. I just didn’t get them till I hit my 20′s when I got astigmatism.)
Due to a rare condition, your field of vision is gradually narrowing. You know that one day you will lose your vision altogether so you go in search of the perfect image to be your last.
