#S.O.T.I Submissions

[groovesnjams]

[[ GROOVES N JAMS S.O.T.Y. 2017 ]]

[ nO. 43/50 ]

“Exhumed” by Zola Jesus

MG:

What I like most about “Exhumed” is the way it triumphs in what are surely bad impulses. I know that mythologically, it’s a reckoning with loss and that loss is written everywhere from a title that directly references burial to the overall sturm und drang of the production. It’s there -- she’s there -- but the practical application of this song is to give life to the way your head throbs right before you do your worst. “Exhumed” is a song of fissures, of flashing between sanity, normalcy and calm, and the other. As in life, neither side wins, it’s simply a spectacular battle, both engaging and scary.

DV:

Apocalypse is the sound and Zola Jesus is the vessel. You can’t dig something up unless it’s already buried, after all. And there’s beauty in the destruction, in the angelic “Let it sink/ Don't let it hold you down”. In the way that chorus emerges from the static and persists to provide the song’s last word. The beat pummels us into submission, the strings strike, Zola Jesus howls her other words like she’s casting a spell. These things coexist with the calm of the refrain, an overwhelming combination. We can only hope for an apocalypse that promises this kind of catharsis, this kind of redemption.