Taking a page from the Fleetwood Mac playbook, Adam Again lead singer/songwriter/guitarist/ keyboardist/producer Gene Eugene (nee Andrusco) and his wife, Adam Again vocalist Riki Michele (nee Michele Bunch), had divorced a year prior to this album's release.
Pressing on together as bandmates, the result is an understandably raw and therefore real album. Seeking and ultimately realizing a new dynamic in the heartbroken aftermath, Perfecta serves as the creative fulcrum upon which honest emotions are negotiated. To the credit of all parties involved, the album never threatens to careen into bitterness, while allowing authentic emotion, no matter how frayed, coarse, confused, vulnerable or pensive, to manifest.
"Stone", (85/100), begins the album with a mid-tempo recollection of the painful day it all fell apart. Eugene delivers the lyrics with just a hint of a catch in his throat with Michele providing wonderfully harmonic background support. In the absence of comprehension that often results from tragedy, the next step can be one in the dark with the weight of a mountain on your shoes. Still, a sense of humour is displayed with a great line in the last verse: "This song's not about me at all ... do you believe me now?"
A vain "hold on!" can then be heard just as the drums and guitars of "Strobe", (85), commence. A catchy rhythm is punctuated with cool synth bursts and impossibly impassive vocals. The simple structure of the verses, nursery-level rhyming quatrains, effectively sets up the last verse's dry punchline.
The tone of the album takes a harder turn with "All You Lucky People", (90). The guitars rev up a positively raucous fury, an intensity they maintain over the next half-dozen tracks. It's a stern account of the void that has replaced the familiar and the loved. The turbulent melody reveals the lack of comfort and the realization of how much has been lost.
"All Right", (92), begins with a haunting acoustic strum before the electric guitars return when a feedback surge ruptures at :42. The song structure follows this pattern which likely mimics the fragile nature of composure in times of great loss. One grasps longingly at scraps of solace just out of reach and even when attained, one's grip is tenuous at best. The bridge at 2:50 absolutely erupts with Michele's background vocals, even while the choruses offer self-reassurance amidst the storm.
The ragged nerve endings also find expression in "Harsh", (87), a good riddance song offered with stream-of-consciousness lyrics and a wry grin. "If there is somewhere you need to be," the singer deadpans, "don't make it here with me." Charged with an extended and somehow serrated instrumental coda, "Harsh" effectively and engagingly blows off a lot of steam.
The "Air", (88), is pretty heavy over the next tune too. Riff-dominated, the rowdy rocker uncovers the delicate balance between the good things and the bad things that life brings. Guitarist Greg Lawless' industrious contributions on this album cannot be overlooked.
If it were possible, the guitars are turned up even further to barrage for the next two songs. Eugene once said in an interview that Perfecta was the result of a three-year jam session. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the monsters "Dogjam", (95), and "L.C.", (93). In "Dogjam", (http://www.mediafire.com/?c3c2qkpn5rf7qav), Eugene writes about a "three-legged dog." After his untimely passing in 2000, his other band, the songwriter quartet Lost Dogs, composed a tribute of sorts by that befitting title on their excellent 2001 Real Men Cry album. "L.C.", (http://www.mediafire.com/?rfil3ardqddnf1b), beginning where "Dogjam" left off, is a rollicking toast to "tears and rage" and Eugene countrymate Leonard Cohen. The Lost Dogs, with Eugene, notably covered Cohen's "If It Be Your Will" on The Green Room Serenade, Part One (1996).
Not that any previous songs have exactly beaten around the bush, as it were, but "Relapse", (95), blows whatever cover is left to kingdom come. With an honesty sadly too brutal for many, "Relapse" describes the severity of a pain that lies in wait to strike again when least expected. It's a song that makes sense to anyone who knows the difficulty of trying to convince people you're fine when you're really not because the last thing you need is to let anyone know you're feeling bad, as then they'll make you feel bad for feeling bad, which just exponentially compounds everything because all they really care about anyway is just making themselves feel better and protecting their fragile vault of artificial blue skies and fake smiles. Good luck with that.
The emotional transparency along with the musical severity seem to produce catharsis. From the cataclysm comes "Every Mother's Way", (93), an acoustic ode, beautiful to the point of tears. It has a "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" kind of vibe, but sparser. Refusing to ignore the reality of loss, its hard-wrought conclusion is boldly plain: "I'll struggle to survive, but I am alive."
"What's Your Name", (86), also starts out with a simple acoustic strum, but the electric guitars are not long in returning. Basically an electric ballad, then, "Name" tempers disappointment through reconciliation while cultivating a feeling of hopeful anticipation.
The grimmer mood resumes with "Unfunny", (84), though. Like "Relapse", this song throws a sneer at those who "can fake a laugh" or hide behind a joke rather than deal with equally real but unpleasant matters. To belabour the superficial Fleetwood Mac kinship, this song could be a thematic, rougher descendant of "Not That Funny" from Tusk (1979).
One-time Great White bassist, under the alias Tony Montana, Anthony Cardenas plays the four-string on "Try Not To Try", (83), (as well as on "Lucky People" earlier). Restoring the conviction of "Name", "Try" overcomes doubt and exhaustion, resolving an acceptance from which new beginnings can be forged.
It is this affirmation which affords the album to culminate with the soft and stoic "Don't Cry", (92). This song, which appeared in its original form on the 1993 Brow Beat: Unplugged Alternative compilation, is as tender and comforting as a goodbye can be. The agony may never completely vanish, but it is risen above here with gentle courage mustered in the confidence of honesty.
On Perfecta, Adam Again prove grief is not weakness. Facing their personal storms and trials with fortitude, the band can move resolutely past the all-too real anger and fear, all the while building a beautiful testament to truth.
Perfecta (album): 89/100.
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