Customer Reviews

Don't Ask Don't Tell

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Finish Line," "Mercury Falls," and "Yr Reign" -- it's a Hendrixian flourish to open, guitars coming down like flaming roofs. Everything on a Come record is serrated: the guitars, the rhythms, the mood. The songs are dark black, and Thalia Zedek's voice takes some time to get used to, like the new Harley next door. Slows a bit on the second side, but the chiming rush of "In/Out" and the stately "Arrive" are memorable.

Come was a terrifying and ambitious band, woefully undervalued. "Eleven:Eleven," "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and "Near Life Experience" are the secret black heaven all guitars aspire to when they die.

This happens to be one of the best albums of the 1990s, and yet no one really seemed to care much about Come, aside from critics, and those of us who listened to the opinions of J. Mascis in the early 90s. He said Come was his favorite band, but in many ways, they were far, far better than Dinosaur ever was. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" an explosive album. Buy it now.

Come isn't for the uninitiated but they should be due to their instrumental prowess and the emotional catharces that Thalia Zedek expounds every time she opens her beautiful, burned soul up and sings her heart out. "German Song" sounds an open letter to a child promising there's "nothing safe for you" in this world as the pretty, minor key chord changes emotionally tell a similar story of isolation and abandonment. " string" is a (stones-ey) letter to a love gone wrong and a statement on control and dependence in relationships. "let's get lost" and "finish line" both stand out as further emotional snapshots. If you like to be rewarded by your music and search for real beauty, look no further than Come.

Eleven: Eleven is better. But that still makes this one of the top five records produced by ANYONE in the decade of the 1990's. Buy it now.

In my opinion this is the best album ever. I can listen to it for days and days. I'm amazed about everything: Thalia's voice, Brokaw's marvellous chords, the sound of the drums (what a production, so clean and yet so powerful), the drive of the bass. On top of that fantastic songs. Dark as the night, clear as the sky, don't ask, don't tell, just buy!

Imagine Neil Young's electric guitar with far more complexity and precision combined with a female Bob Dylan. Just take my word for it: Thalia Zedek is awesome. All her work, under her own name and with Come is great, but this 1994 effort still stands as the best album.

I bought Eleven:Eleven when it came out in 1992 and I've always considered it a quite special record. In spite of that, only more recently did I decide to check out more from Come. I naturally opted for the next in line, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and I wasn't disappointed.

Musically, it's very similar to the stuff on Eleven:Eleven. Yet I think this is a more consistent album. The best songs, like German Song, In/Out, Yr Reign may not be as striking as the best of Eleven:Eleven, but there are no boring ones here and the album flows nicely and keeps you interested until the end.

If you liked Eleven:Eleven, be sure that Come were not a one-album band. There's more of that dark stuff in Don't Ask Don't Tell. You won't regret buying it.

Come: Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell

I have owned this CD for close to ten years now and I?ve never accepted it as a worthy follow-up to the brilliant Eleven:Eleven, no matter how many times I return to it. I haven?t heard their third album but in comparison to Come?s whirlwind of a debut album (Eleven:Eleven) I expected at least some spontaneity, unexpected tempo changes and formless free-flowing "harnessing of electricity". Instead we?ve got an album that mostly constists of predictable songs with singing that merely imitates the awesome cathartic release from the first album. Many of the songs come across as pretentious whining, like Sonic Youth on a bad day (think of "Experimental Jet Set,Trash and no Star"). The refreshening blast from their first gives way to unfocused groggy noise.

What mostly annoys me (apart from the predictability of the songs) is the inauthentic and affected vocals. That said, the album sounds best when the singing is more straightforward ("Let?s Get Lost" and "Wrong Side") and the sound is cleaner, particularly when it is very naked and vulnerable. Two brilliant exemples are found in "The German Song" and the final song "Arrive". Actually, if it weren?t for these two songs I would totally ignore this album. They eleveate the album way above mediocrity of the other tracks. As masterclasses in subdued tension, these two songs create much more "power" than the noisy rest of the album (The sound is actually similar to Thin White Rope?s guitar approach: Two guitar?s gently trickling around each other?s serpentine loops, forming an engaging counterpoint through delicate tension. Throbbing pulse of the drums and a soft raspy (occasionally hovering) guitar in the background. There is even a hint of that special warped guitar sound from Nick Cave?s "Watching Alice" in the final song, fitting just perfectly).

So basically, these are the only two songs really worth returning to. Two or three more songs are fine but the rest is substandard material, inauthentic in execution. Come to think of it, with stricter quality control, the album would actually have made an excellent EP.