Perfecta by Adam Again

perfectaADAM AGAIN
PERFECTA

1995 Brainstorm
Review by: Matt Crosslin

Perfecta is the rawest and (at times) loudest Adam Again disc. One reviewer even called it “the book of Job of music.” This would be a very apt description. Gene’s voice is pretty desperate at places here – whether he is asking himself what to do when the electricity goes out at his studio or expressing his sorrow over the main pains of life. There is still humor to be found scattered throughout the album. In “Harsh,” you can hear a hint of sarcastic laughter when he sings “now be a dear and leave me alone.””He is basically telling someone to go away… but he also finds something funny in the way he says it.

Heavy on Gene’s heart at the time of this album was his recent divorce, but that is not all. Themes of loss slip in to many of the songs on the album. Much of the carefully crafted word play from Dig is gone, but the lyrics here are still deep and confessional even if they aren’t twisting your tongue at the same time.

Perfecta was said to have been recorded live in the studio, during what Gene referred to as a “three-year jam session.” That would probably be the best way to describe the whole album – an intense jam recorded while all the players involved were living and/or discussing some of the harder parts of life.

  1. I couldn’t help but feel that Gene had a sense of his mortality. When listening to the songs played at Cstone 2000, there was an eerie sense of his saying goodbye through the words of his song not just to us but also to his ex-wife who was on the stage notably having a difficult if not impossible time holding back her tears. Don’t Cry…

    Hey, lo
    It’s time to go
    It’s time to say, say goodbye
    Don’t cry

    And then there is the inexplainable foreshadowing of Dogjam…

    Three-legged dog hobbling in the backyard
    I don’t mind at all
    Three-legged dog, cat-chasing is hard
    But I can’t forget that she paid for it all

    I cannot listen to the recording without a haunting feeling that Gene knew his time was short and poured out himself in his work to compensate for his lack of time. No one in the world of music, Christian or not, has put more hours and more heart into his work than Gene.

    I’m working on a riddle
    I pray that God can keep this secret safe another day
    So I can find some time

    I’m leaning on forever
    God knows I want to have it in my sight and I can’t say
    Goodbye, I want to try

    Sneaking up again, again, the end
    I thought that I was better
    Sneaking up again, again, the end
    I thought that I was better
    Sneaking up again, again, the end
    I thought that I was better

    Believe me, believe me, believe me
    I’m fine

    I have no doubt that where Gene is, he’s doing just fine.

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