Zola Jesus
Tsar Bomba

We somewhat asked for it. The constant search for the musical barrier and its potential surpassing has led us to this. For the past year, magazines (and let's not forget webzines) have bombarded our hearing with the most improbable definitions, aimed at categorizing certain musical genres without a clearly distinct direction, more for "artistic" intent than due to a lack of common traits. Lo-fi Goth, Glo-fi, Hypnagogic Pop. That's what the cult is called in 2009.

And Zola Jesus probably represents one of the gems of this movement. A sort of deity for noise fetishists. A Beth Gibbons in withdrawal from Valium, a Lydia Lunch in decomposition. From the former, she seems to draw the more twisted side, glimpsed in Portishead's “Third”, seeking ethereal vocals over syncopated rhythms and macabre death dances. From the latter, she seems to seek theatricality but fails to grasp its essence. It's for this reason that tracks like “Last Day” or “Flesh” do not engage. It's probably for this reason that when the tracks are invigorated with Noise (and its accompanying rumblings), as in the case of “Said The White Rabbit”, it will only feel like we've gotten lost in a block of auto-masturbatory and, why not, auto-conclusive digressions. Not everything, however, is bad here.

Indeed, when the Wisconsin vocalist focuses on the true song form, the results are decidedly better. Just consider “Rester”, a funeral march supported by the same gray synths found throughout the rest of the album and, this time, a highly successful vocal line, despite its evident derivations. The same goes for the other true song (having a well-recognized structure, though, pardon the repetition, de-structured), “Sea Talk”. Here the tones are ethereal and evocative, Siouxsie playing hide and seek with the corpses of what once was Death Rock. More shadows than lights, very few of the latter, in this EP from the “crazy” American singer. I might be a traditionalist, but I still consider making music an art, and good old Zola is still distant from it.

Awaiting for her to square the circle.