Adam Again

Item: Perfecta
Author: Todd Brown

Perfecta

(1995)

Reviewed by Todd Brown

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Label Brainstorm ArtistsThe LighthouseSeptember 1995

alternative rock funk rock indie rock

This is a hard piece to write. One side of me would like nothing more than to rave over this long-awaited piece of funk/rock/pop audio art. Another side has deep reservations about it. Perhaps I'll just write this in two parts.

Part One: Perfecta is about as close to audio perfection as Gene Eugene, et al, have approached to this point. The songs draw you in to their own world of textures and rarely let you go. The production is flawless, as are the song writing and playing. It's intensely emotive without being raw.

For those who already know Adam Again, this is the next logical step after Dig. Perfecta fuses the louder, dirtier elements of Dig with a touch of the funk of Homeboys and Ten Songs. For those who haven't come across them before, if you like R.E.M., chances are you'll be into this.

Musically, this is easily their most cohesive work. The first track sets a vibe that holds all the way till the end of track fourteen.

Part Two: There have been a lot of artists who have written about divorce recently. Mike Roe and Fluffy leap to mind. This is another. It's enough to make you think that something is seriously wrong within the value system dominant in Christian music. The problem with this album isn't so much that it's about Gene Eugene and Riki Michele getting divorced, which is the theme of virtually every song; the problem is Eugene's response to the situation. While Roe's Safe as Milk album offered strong themes of forgiveness and hope for the future, Eugene digs a hole of melancholy and sits in it. That disturbs me.

As far as his songs go, Eugene's sad ones are normally his best, but after three albums of them, perhaps it's time to climb out of the hole.