All Of Us Flames

Album review

Ezra Furman has made an unflinchingly honest record about what it means to be trans at a time when many Americans are just beginning to understand—or willfully choosing not to. The singer, who came out as a trans woman in 2021, has made 10 records—some with the band the Harpoons—and this one completes a trilogy along with the Springsteen-influenced Transangelic Exodus and full-on punk rock of Twelve Nudes. Things heat up with "Train Comes Through," a tough mix of Melissa Etheridge, Transformer-era Lou Reed and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, seemingly willing itself to life with each pulsing note. "It's a queer album for the stage of life when you start to understand that you are not a lone wolf, but depend on finding your family, your people, how you work as part of a larger whole," Furman, who is also attending rabbinical school, has said. Nowhere is that clearer than on the stunning "Throne." Matching the nervy, intensely personal drama of Fiona Apple's Fetch the Bolt Cutters, she sings: "I had come to a foreign shore/ Looks familiar, I've been here before/ There's my family, there's my house/ But we don't belong here/ We've gotta get out/ Newborn baby/ I've just been born … I couldn't get by without this underground network/ On which I rely." The whole thing heaves like a hulking pirate ship, plunking piano sending out a warning call. Adopting '60s girl group swoon and piercing harmonies, " Dressed in Black" suggests romance under cover is both heart-fluttering and heartbreaking. Shannon Lay and Debbie Neigher lend backing vocals to the slow-burning ballad "Point Me Toward the Real" as Nate Walcott's (Bright Eyes) moody horns seep in. Power ballad "Book of Our Names" is about being not just seen but remembered, hailed. "Come Close" boasts a pretty jewel box melody and bluntly vivid lyrics about illicit encounters with men in cars and on the street. "Lord, be close to the broken hearted," Furman pleads before asking hard questions of her culture: "What do your rainbows do?/ What do your bright flags do?" (Her metaphorical lyricism is just as powerful, as on "Temple of Broken Dreams": "You're a collection of the shards that you can save/ We're all destined for perfection in the grave.") "I started to think of trans women as a secret society across the world: scattered everywhere, but so obviously bound together…," Furman has said of the record. "I've been building my world of queer pals, and it feels like we're forming a gang." Her voice is like a rally cry on "Lilac and Black": "We're out here on the attack," she sings, citing weaponry and armor of lilac and black clothing, death stares, evil eyes. "The cis question if we really exist/ Sometimes even we've got doubts/ But the feminine deferred like a rubbed-out word/ Is still passed around from mouth to mouth." © Shelly Ridenour /Qobuz