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Kristin Hersh
Hersh revisits
Throwing Muses territory by putting together a band for Sky Motel.
And while I shamefully pine for her to pull off another stunning Real
Ramona, I really have nothing to complain about here. Hersh sounds
comfortable and relaxed, and the music reflects her even keel. Producer
Trina Shoemaker has kept the music subdued and given space for Hersh's
lyrics to spread out their beguiling wings. The songs have a bizarre
glamour to them. Hersh beckons us into her seemingly placid world, only
to whisper sweetly in our ears that all is not well here. But it's too
difficult to heed a warning whispered so dearly. Thus "White
Trash Moon" warns us not to stare at the neighbor's hair or at
their underwear; the freaks live next door to Hersh these days, rather
than within her. During "A Cleaner Light," Hersh again warns
us to "keep away from the freaks on the fringe/ They only talk to
you because you give them a good excuse to cry." These songs not
only advise us, but they also remind Hersh not to let go of the
handrail. On Sky Motel's
standout track, "Caffeine," Hersh responds to the barking of
her black dog of manic depression. She sings, "The best of us
puking/ The rest of us not doing so well." She wishes that "we
were lonely/ We were boring." These are her bipolar voices siren-
calling again. Hersh resists by not acting upon their persuasions; she
acknowledges they'll always be a part of her, and in a line of truly
moving pathos, she sums up her situation: "You're driving and I'm
your backseat shadow." However, the
record's single, "Echo," affirms her strength, (albeit in
typically oxymoronic Hersh style). Amid Brazilia- styled lounge rhythms,
Hersh proclaims that she craves "the very loudest sound/ I'm
chasing everybody/ I'm shaking everybody down/I'm loving
everybody." This exhilaration is matched on "Costa Rica"
when she coos, "I caught us kissing on a plane in California/ It
wasn't tame, but just the same/ I would love a better drug/ You lucky
jerk." It's as though she used to see stability as a hallucinogen,
but now, she's become resilient to the phantasmagoria of reality and
aspires to try for the high that the non- manic world seeks. Sky Motel
is a powerful, graceful album of quiet victory, then. Hersh no longer
considers herself aberrant. This newly- harnessed stability doesn't mean
that Hersh doesn't perceive the weirdos and the crazies; it means that
now she can start to comment on other people's wayward behavior rather
than making uncontrolled autobiographies of her own manias. |
Former Throwing
Muses frontwoman and Appalachian lullaby-singing mom is back with her
third solo album. But just because she's calmer now than she was during
her days with Throwing Muses, don't assume Sky Motel is a washed-
out affair. Hersh's demons may have been vanquished, but her lyrical
acuity can still pierce and unsettle. Nowadays, it's just not so
strident.