A lot of bands are painful to listen to simply because they're so bad, but Come administer an entirely different kind of aural agony. Fronted by Thalia Zedek, a lesbian ex-junkie who revels in lines like "The closer I get, the harder I get hit," Come translate feelings of alienation, dejection and depression into strung-out punk-blues songs that shiver with hopelessness and glimmer with raw beauty. The band's third album, Near Life Experience, finds a new rhythm section reshaping Come's familiar anguish without significantly altering their trademark Television-meets-a-train-wreck sound.
The album is looser and less structurally complex than prior offerings; while Come once flavored
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their songs with abrupt rhythms and jarring tempo shifts, they now emphasize textural and instrumental variation, surprising the listener with a scattering of marimba plinks, horn squawks and organ chimes. "Secret Number" is driven by pointy guitar lines reminiscent of Sonic Youth and enhanced by short bursts of static. Then there's "Bitten," in which churning guitars and Zedek's cigarette-torn rasp tumble through bleating trumpets and galloping drums. "Sloe-Eyed" is a playfully bleak number that sounds like a music box playing at half-speed.
Those who long for the dynamic glory of Come's earlier lineup can hear it on Steve Wynn's latest album, Melting in the Dark. If it weren't for the precise start-stop drumming of Arthur Johnson and the intuitive instrumental interplay among Zedek, guitarist Chris Brokaw and bassist Sean O'Brien, this album would be a real snooze.
Wynn appears to have hired the early version of Come to recapture some of the trailblazing energy his former band, the Dream Syndicate, displayed on its debut album, The Days of Wine and Roses. But Come's clamor seems out of place next to Wynn's uninspired retrorock drawl. Aside from the swanky spy riff and poppy chorus of "Shelley's Blues, Pt. 2" and the disorienting guitar bends in the Velvet Underground-flavored "The Angels," Wynn's efforts to resurrect the past are a big disappointment. (RS 740)
JON WIEDERHORN
