Come

(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Boston's singer Thalia Zedek, bolstered by the charisma she displayed with the Live Skull, and guitarist Chris Brokaw (drummer of Codeine), who were already high school classmates, formed Come.

Zedek, raised in a poor Washington neighborhood, had moved to Boston in 1979. She began as a TV actress in one of the many early ’80s serials. She arrived at rock music through two female bands, the White Women and the Dangerous Birds (the single Emergency/ Smile On Your Face), and continued with the more experimental Uzi, immortalized by the legendary EP Sleep Asylum (Homestead, 1986 – Matador, 1993), released just days after the band dissolved.

The Uzi were a quintet, with Danny Lee on percussion, Phil Milstein on tapes, Bob Young on guitar, and Randy Barnwell on bass. The music of Criminal Child and Ha-Ha-Ha was powerful rock and roll distorted by electronics. The ballad Gabrielle and the experimental tour de force Collections drew on the menacing atmospheres of British “dark punk.” Finally, Pale Light anticipated the narcotic, slow, and fragmented harmonies of slow-core.

In all these groups, Zedek had always drawn inspiration from Patti Smith, amplifying the tension of Radio Ethiopia with a tribal and “concrete” approach (noise, tape loops, sampling). Her magnetic personality caused a sensation, and in 1987, after moving to New York’s Lower East Side and undergoing a period of rehabilitation, she was recruited by the Live Skull (who were fresh off two avant-garde post-punk albums), just in time for the recording of their third album, Dusted (Homestead).

Zedek contributed her personality to the Live Skull’s last albums, though she did not write a single song (she did write all the lyrics). In the meantime, she had started the band Via with guitarist Jerry DiRienzo, but relapsed into her vices to the point of losing her day job, being evicted, and turning to prostitution.

Come was born when Zedek had returned to Boston, resigned to a life of hardship. Her revival came through guitarist Chris Brokaw of Codeine, who also recruited two young musicians recently arrived from Georgia: Arthur Johnson (ex Bar-B-Q Killers) on drums and Sean O’Brien (ex Kilkenny Cat) on bass. The singles Car (SubPop), paired with the intense ballad Submerge and Last Mistake, and Fast Piss Blues (with the stormy title track and the long, agonizing Brand New Vein) were the manifesto of music as challenging and cerebral as that of the Live Skull, but tempered by psychedelic atmospheres and a general sleepwalking pace.

Eleven: Eleven (Matador, 1992) essentially represents another link in Zedek’s evolutionary chain. Dominating both the Neil Young-style ballad Dead Molly and the almost trance-like crescendo of Off To One Side, as well as the electric fever of Williom and the monumental Orbit (a would-be suicide playing desolate blues jamming), are still the oppressive atmospheres of the Live Skull. These are not songs; they are headaches.

After the single Wrong Side, one of her best blues, the album Don't Ask Don't Tell (Beggars Banquet, 1994) was released. The music is tighter and matches Zedek’s angry and desperate tone. The album is dominated by the stirring Let's Get Lost, a grand blues in which the instruments surge passionately and Zedek’s singing flows with their tumultuous movement. The six-nightmarish minutes of Finish Line, with its dark sound, contain the quintessence of the funeral litany Zedek has been singing for a decade. Their songs often seem poorly structured, arranged, and sung. The fact is that these are songs that gradually take shape, often culminating in breathtaking finales after appearing to drag without vigor. What counts is the dramatic tension. Indeed, it is the more regular and substantial songs, Yr Reign and In Out, that seem out of place. The quartet seems eager to emulate Royal Trux and Jon Spencer. Even less appropriate are the Codeine reminiscences in the slow instrumental German Song and the interminable Arrive.

The compositions become more intricate on Near Life Experience (Matador, 1996). The style of Royal Trux seems to prevail. While the music remains fearfully negative, Brokaw and Zedek (now a duo occasionally augmented by other musicians) inject a bit of grit, melody, and arrangement. The new course opens with the melancholy blues of Hurricane, tense with Zedek’s guttural moans and fueled by the usual rough guitar noise, but also caressed by a nearly folk violin and a quasi-gospel piano. The band finally emerges from the Codeine slow-core shell with the raucous and frantic Bitten, this time enriched by a trumpet solo, and the exotic, martial bolero of Half Life. The weary, hypnotic Walk On’s features a marimba interlude. These interludes perhaps matter more than the songs themselves. Brokaw attempts to craft a couple of more musical numbers: Shoot Me First, calm and almost fairytale-like over a Talking Heads-style strum, and Secret Number, a dreamy power ballad well staged by the guitars. Zedek’s monotone, agonized, and fatalistic singing is increasingly an obstacle rather than an attraction. Logically, Brokaw might consider freeing himself from his burdensome partner and pursuing a career as a neurotic, dark solo singer-songwriter in the vein of Neil Young.

Gently Down The Stream (Matador, 1998), thanks to an exceptional rhythm section (Winston Bramen on bass and Daniel Coughlin on drums), changes style: One Piece and The Fade-Outs remain funeral litany, but rest on solid rhythmic barrages. Come even deliver a Stomp in their own way and a driving A John Blues. The middle-aged style is heard in Sorry Too Late and Silk City, a sober blend of Royal Trux and Neil Young.
Greater technical mastery allows more effective psychological excursions, reaching ever more distant horizons. Their philosophy and career are summed up in a melodic ballad like Recidivist, the quintessence of what they do best in rock (harmonic chiaroscuro, rhythmic angularity, desolate spirit). Saints Around My Neck and March (both eight minutes) perhaps exaggerate this message, the first diluting it in a mass of words, the second traumatizing it with thunderous chords; but the idea remains that of a sorrowful, negative ballad, a surly and battered rock. The tender Middle Of Nowhere even tries to slow the pace and soften the tones, engaging with country-ballad meters, while those performing the majestic waltz of New Coast hardly resemble the Come of old. At the end of the album even a small requiem for guitar, piano, and clarinet appears: Former Model. Many of these tracks exceed five minutes with ease, a sign that Brokaw and Zedek have much to tell, first with words, then with guitars.

As with the Live Skull, Come’s music expresses a highly degraded state of punk emotivity. Come perhaps undertook the most radical attempt to renew the ballad form since Neil Young.