Tom Verlaine
Flash Light

"Cry Mercy Judge" opens offbeat and hits you sideways, a pulsating New Wave thrill strikes you like an explosion tearing a building in half as soon as the needle finds some notes.

Tom Verlaine starts his blue album this way, people talked about him, said he was lost in the Moma galleries, wandering in Queens, wanted in Staten Island, a fake tourist in Manhattan, and what does he do? He shows up where he belongs, standing in front of a microphone, black shirt, Fender slung over his shoulder, distant and confident expression. Were there room for doubt, a moment of uncertainty, if sometimes there was a tremor of his hand while he caresses the six strings with the pick, surely no Tom Verlaine album would have ever seen the light. He, so thin and fragile, would be crushed to death.

He, silent lord of the metropolises straddling between gray and rainbow, has never shown a hint of hesitation, walks in comfortable shoes, dresses terribly, plays like a god. His record production fills the 80s with hidden gems behind the stages, a point of reference for second or third-row masses: the latest is "Flash Light," the fifth solo work, the quintessence of his restless and sparkling music, dark and full of flashes. That was 1987. "Cover," three years earlier, had come to unsettle just enough the minds of his followers, neither many nor few, and now Tom Verlaine returns to his women, a Jaguar and a Jazzmaster, like an old lover retracing certain streets with tears in his eyes. Many disturbances lie in the mind of a man over three years, in his they accumulate in layers. After the memorable musings of its predecessor, "Flash Light" brings back a classic Tom Verlaine, a mature man of Rock reconnecting with his passions ("A Town Called Walker," "Annie's Telling Me"), a shaken soul in constant duet with his screaming guitar, as if it were the guitar playing Tom Verlaine, lean and brilliant weaver of disturbed melodies: believing it is easy, just listen to "Song" in the evening, or "Bomb" at night, where the voice and the Fender follow lines that seem independent, walking along parallel paths never too distant to occasionally meet and exchange a greeting. In the midst of these two essential gems, the Punk Rock alchemist carves out a space of blessed and painful solitude and gives birth to the heartbreaking, subdued "The Scientist Writes A Letter" filled with lost love, the only true callback to the excellent "Cover."

The guitar weighs on the crossed legs and calls for attention that bounces between the neck, the half-empty bottle to the left, the cold glass of the closed window to the right; "play me, for God's sake!" it seems to say amid the sea of synthesizers. In the center of the room, a Verlaine more scientist than musician sits at his desk, writes to his Julia, and occasionally listens to that talking guitar. Behind the quadrupled face on the cover lies the soul of a drained artist, sometimes a more disillusioned singer-songwriter; perhaps never in his solo career as in "Flash Light" have all the elements proving his greatness been concentrated. "Say A Prayer" sees that occasionally playful side in melodies re-emerge that had already surfaced in the past ("Let Go To The Mansion," for example), while "The Funniest Thing" and especially "At 4 A.M." are delightful to imagine playing from Mark Knopfler's stereo in his London living room (at that time, more New Yorker), as he closes his eyes and hints at a smile of satisfaction for those guitar lines so akin to what he usually teaches, he who, like Tom Verlaine, managed to find that perfect balance between strings and pleasure.

And with "One Time at Sundown," you realize how much Tom Verlaine has learned well.