Evangelista - "Prince of Truth"

I'm reluctant to say this but there's a song called "You Are a Jaguar" on Prince of Truth that just shreds. The reluctance doesn't spring from any dislike of Evangelista; a project that I love. It comes from having to use the word "shred." It's such an adolescent word and it sounds to me like something someone a third of my age would say. Ten years ago. But, I have to say it. The song shreds. Evangelista is the latest, and thankfully the most permanent, residing place of Carla Bozulich and this song takes me to a place I've been familiar with ever since I first saw her play with the Geraldine Fibbers over a decade ago. A solid drum beat meets a little feedback and a guitar riff and they all meet up with two basslines and eventually everything is rolling. Then it's swirling and while it all comes to a mathematically chaotic vortex, Carla's vocals become more fevered. Eventually she's screaming; the center of the twister. I can picture her on stage allowing her collaborators to take over while she closes her eyes and dances with her hands up like cat paws. This is the song with the crazy lyrics. It's like a Rorschach test. Are you drawn to the lyrics about death being bound to come "dragging chains through the trees?” Or to the singsong chorus proclaiming "you and all are friends are here / And those who aren't are very dear" that shares the same song? (A song that begins with a series of sexual metaphors "You are a jaguar... a peppermint stick, a little bomb in the middle" and talks about a cat taking bets on who is going to be the next one around her to have an accident.) If you're like me, you appreciate having both sides along for the ride.

"You Are a Jaguar," the song with the crazy lyrics, that shreds, is placed between two songs that feel like they should be on another album. Softer, measured and yet, once again, about collaboration, and about marrying words to sound. "I Lay There in Front of Me Covered in Ice" is about a vision of one's own death. Or precisely, one's own suicide. It seems like a dream (Carla sings "I've seen it now twice") but it feels too real to anyone who's ever pondered their own usefulness and come up with a conclusion as final as "I lay down in front of me. No white light shines on me. No little hands pulling or pushing me back or pointing me into the black." Reading the full lyric on paper, it's chilling, bleak and theatrically evocative: "Go tell your father, this town's lost another daughter." But it's a vision of despair in a pretty package - like Bozulich is taking a place where there's nothing and creating something just to prove there is something. Her voice is sweet and defiant and she's lushly but slowly followed by the measured support of a number of first-string collaborators: Shahzad Ismaily, Nels Cline, Bobb Bruno... but most significantly, Dominic Cramp on organ driving the song at a measured pace, creating punctuation without overwhelming. The other song sandwiching that shredding song is "Iris Didn't Spell.” I'm starting to use words I hate again. Like jaunty. But it's jaunty. Again soft. Sad. Rooted in something deeper. "Isaura looks up to the sky / Sees the birds fly overhead / In perfect time / And perfect shape / She steps upon a green landscape / Darkness falls. The stars explode. But they don't die, they just can't be together." Carla's voice is determined. Sexy, even. For about three minutes, mid-song, it all drifts and plays around. It feels like it's going to get lost. It rambles. Then all the musicians return to home base and it all comes around for the happy, unhappy conclusion. None of this should work and here's why: When this was all to be recorded, Carla developed pneumonia. But rather than cancel the recording session, she allowed the principles to record the tracks. Then she pieced the whole thing together with her vocals, the original recordings, and new tracks laid down - by different musicians - when things seemed missing. There are only six songs written by Carla. The amazing finale "On the Captain's Side" - clocking in at almost 10 minutes - was written by Carla's permanent bandmates... bassist Tara Barnes who provides a pillar of granite as a foundation throughout the record, and Cramp. Carla handed over lead vocal duties to frequent collaborator Jessica Catron. The whole thing should be a throwaway. That last track is stunning and I've described three others in perhaps a bit too much detail. What could have been a disaster turns out to be the Evangelista White Album - there are only seven journeys, but each one is exciting, funny, sad, frightening.

It's an impressive balancing act and what makes it work is the hand of Bozulich at the wheel. There are few artists who put themselves so dangerously up on the high wire, who present real loss and real survival with as much dignity and courage. There are even fewer who can make it so much fun. In "The Slayer" Carla sings "Am I here to watch over you? / Am I here to destroy you? / Am I here just to think / It matters what I do" and that says volumes in a self-deprecating way. The artist who wants to say everything because maybe someone else needs to hear it, and who is aware of the potential consequences but who knows she has to do what she does anyway. As a result she builds something hopeful, even joyful out of these raw emotions. Building, I guess, is the opposite of shredding. It does matter, what Carla B does, and for that alone, I give Prince of Truth a 10.