Boston songwriter
Thalia Zedek's brooding, churning sounds have been in a state of flux for a long, long time. With
Via, her first record since 2008's
Liars and Prayers,
Zedek taps into the burning aggression she knew well fronting late-'80s gutter rock bands like
Uzi and
Live Skull, but cloaks the anger in the muted blues that have anchored her sounds for the better part of her solo career. Throughout the album's nine songs, there's a nebulous sense of despair, but it's less an anguished confusion and more of the melancholy of acceptance that comes with a life full of heavy changes. Opening track "Walk Away" has an almost triumphant feel to its meandering dour chord progressions and
David Michael Curry's wistful viola runs. The haunted sprawl of "Winning Hand" stretches out with the spooky menace of
Nick Cave, the introspective grit of
Patti Smith's
Easter, and even some slight hints of the depressive magic of
the Cure's masterwork
Disintegration. Tracks like "Get Away" and "Lucky One" recall some of the same broken-down charm of
Zedek's mid-'90s slowcore group
Come, and even the metered guitar work of her
Come bandmate
Chris Brokaw's former unit
Codeine. By the magnanimous album closer "Want You to Know,"
Via's overarching themes of loss, truth, and redemption come to a cathartic climax in a storm of feedback-laden guitar, skronky viola, and explosive drum outbursts. Much like the rest of the album, this eruption feels like an incontestable force of nature, and we're left only to observe as the dust settles and
Via fades to a close.