ALBUM REVIEW: On ‘Sin of Certainty,’ Sadie Gustafson-Zook Gets Comfy With Not Knowing

Singer-songwriter Sadie Gustafson-Zook has crafted a poetic jewel of an album, Sin of Certainty, where remarkable vocals are front and center, supported by a palette of well-chosen acoustic instruments.

Lyrically, this is a deeply personal telling of Gustafson-Zook’s search for answers in her own life, but it’s easily relatable for listeners who likewise might not have things all figured out. The phrase “I don’t know” occurs a couple dozen times in the course of the album, helping propel it through its course of self-discovery.

Gustafson-Zook grew up in a folk music environment in Indiana and pursued a classical music instruction path before being drawn to Boston for its great folk music scene and opportunities to further her music education as a graduate student in jazz vocal studies at Bard College’s Longy School of Music. She manages to blend her varied musical experiences into a satisfying combination that is folk at its core but enhanced with jazz influences. She uses her voice with the precision of an instrument, leaping between registers and outlining jazz chords, all with grace and ease, never in a gratuitous, showy manner.

The album’s embrace of uncertainty is set in motion with the opening number, “Birdsong,” a musical vignette in which Gustafson-Zook recalls an experience where she mistook the singing of a bird for the catcall of a man, an error based on past experiences where she had received unwanted attention from men. The song recounts some of these experiences, but she sails above the memories, escaping on wings of scat-singing, buoyed by woodwinds and harp.

The songs on the first half of the album deal with the emotions of self-discovery, coming out as queer, and searching for acceptance. They are directed inward, processing thoughts and emotions.

Next the songs turn outward, addressing others in her life, first with appreciation, then questioning how a person can have dual personalities, like two different people. The song “Digestion” concludes the conversational tone while dispensing advice.

The album diverges from the emotional inventory for another vignette. “Alewife” poetically and vividly describes an experience at the end of Boston’s Red Line. The song’s chorus consists of a single vocable “eeee …,” implying the sound of train brakes, but sung with beauty and finesse.

Sin of Certainty wraps up with two songs of acceptance. In “Your Love Makes Me Smile,” Gustafson-Zook is bathed in the warmth of acknowledging she has found a special person. With “Everyone” she admits she doesn’t need to be the person others say she should be, and that she probably won’t ever know who she should be either. And that’s fine with her.

In the current polarized political climate, where so many people are unbudgingly certain they are correct, Gustafson-Zook has discovered the higher path to truth is uncertainty. She keeps searching for answers, and so should we.