Zoh Amba

Coming just a year after their 2025 record Sun, Eyes Full couldn’t come as more of a contrast. Known primarily as a preeminent saxophonist, wading through the waters of jazz, noise, and free improv, a Matador signing and record packed with blues-tinged acoustic guitars and emotionally charged vocals wasn’t quite what I was expecting. On Eyes Full, Amba proves that the world can’t box them into a corner, delivering one of the year’s rawest records; chewing on traditions and approaching rock with an experimenter’s heart. The recordings are rounded out with electric guitar from longtime friend Kevin Hyland and a rhythmic anchor from drummer Jim White, who plays with Zoh in the excellent ensemble Beings. Together the three turn Amba’s songs of survival and small town stagnation into a lit match.

Amba has a way of painting picaresque scenes of the South and then soaking the rag in paint thinner, turpentine, and sweat; smearing the staid notions of rock and blues with an emotional turbulence that feels brittle yet biting. The record’s threaded through with a theme of being seen, kicking away the calls to be quiet, to conform, to be easy. There’s a sense of slipping the status quo without losing who you are at the heart of the album. Amba seethes with a catharsis that’s palpable. When “Southern Soil” comes to a rolling boil, the listener breaks through right along with Amba’s steam. The singles like “Eyes Full” and “Another Time” harbor no intentions of hiding their hackles. With an impassioned yowl, Zoh shakes the tapes, letting each lyric hit like a palm to the sternum. While not necessarily their first record, it stands as a strong debut, a new chapter that’s as strident and solid as any in their catalog of sax works. Slashing genre, subverting expectations, and grabbing the ears of the listener with both hands, Eyes Full is a force that’s hard to ignore in 2026.

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