Zola Jesus – “Tsar Bomba” – [Troubleman Unlimited]

Madison madwoman Nika Danilova is Jesus, Zola Jesus. This 20-year old artist delivers us unto a 45 rpm record with key clutterboards and machined clusterdrums thick under warped vocals. Sound swelters welts in your ears. Zola’s post-nuclear, post-Siouxsie vocals wail in the haze. If earthquakes dream, then this is the dirty dirge-pop that serves as their theme music. Trace elements of Mauve Sideshow or Cocteau Twins appear when Zola cuts the effects on her vox. Check out the drifty aria at the end of “Rester” where Zola’s soul, and years of operatic training, are revealed. Dirty whirlwinds of distoria almost hide some downright hummable melodies. While this is a one-woman Jesus in the studio, when she performs live she’s joined at the Sacred Bones by Dead Luke on those synthetic clutterboards. The last two or three cuts track, I think the way of the “Flesh” survives a near death noise explosion and then goes “Past the Blue Brick Stone” for brimstone sonics? I can see some of the persistent pain (delicious as it is) lifting and letting more of her soaring voice beam in going forward. Accenting both the Sweet *and* Sour Jesus.

-Thurston Hunger