Tag: Throwing Muses

Posted in Album Reviews

Throwing Muses – Midnight Concessions (2025)

Posted on by Michael

18 months after she released her last solo album, Kristin Hersh returns with her band Throwing Muses for the cleverly titled Midnight Concessions. The album takes on a southern gothic, swamp like feel where the air is thick and heavy.  Along with her usual bandmates, David Narcizo on drums and Bernard Georges on bass, the cello of Pete Harvey plays a big role on the album. Songs like the darkly atmospheric “Theremini” have the strings play a prominent role.

“Summer of Love” sees Hersh push the guitar into the forefront as she sings, “finally life as it should have been” which is in contrast to “South Coast” where she sings, “Go down without a fight/No dawn without a light”. On the second half of the album, “Sally’s Beauty” has a hazy, almost eerie feel whereas “Albatross” is more immediate and in the listener’s face where she implores us to “just survive”.  While affecting in some spots, there is not enough of those moments on Moonlight Concessions to really make it a great record.

6.5/10

Posted in Album Reviews

Throwing Muses – Sun Racket (2020)

Posted on by Michael
Sun Racket

In 2018, Kristen Hersh released her 10th solo studio recording and in the fall of 2020, her first band Throwing Muses matched that number.  Sun Racket saw the Muses trio, including bassist Bernard Georges and drummer David Narcizo, return after a seven year hiatus.  The cover is a photo of what looks to be a Florida back alley – hot, hazy that can turn dark and mysterious in the night time…. Such is the music here. Hersh’s voice on first track “Dark Blue” is scratchy and worn in over a solid drum bedrock, the guitars sludgy and distorted.

The lyrics on second single “Bo Diddley Bridge” is where the album gets it’s name on a track where the guitars make quite the racket before everything slows down, adding a piano reminiscent of Faith No More’s “Epic”. Lyrics can be like short poems, where questions abound.  “Maria Laguna” describes a disappearance/return and the reverb drenched “Upstairs Dan” sees Hersh sing about “Dan in drag/barefoot and drunk/Iris gin warm in the trunk”. Sun Racket ends with more atmosphere on the final two tracks on an album that makes a racket then gently releases the listener back into the wild.

7/10