KRISTIN HERSH
Sky Motel
(4AD)
-- Alexandra Flood
 You don't just listen to Kristin Hersh's music and then walk away to read a People Magazine or watch pro-wrestling. Oh no. Don't believe me? Try it for yourself (remember -- you were warned). And don't ask me how she does it either (I bet she's not even aware of this ability), but this is the strange and odd musical power that this former Throwing Muse holds over the novice and the devout. She has the deceptive power to get under your skin... and stay there.
Since the release of Throwing Muses' debut album in 1986, Kristin Hersh has been making outstanding and all-too-often unsung rock. Never creatively dictated to by the market place, Hersh's songwriting can be potent, ethereal, livid, whimsical, and yes, sexy. On her latest LP, Sky Motel, she has ditched the acoustic guitar from her previous solo efforts and returned to her electric roots, making songs that pose way more questions than answers. In other words, Sky Motel is a very welcomed, Muse-style record for those of you who long for the old days that ended with TM's last, fittingly-titled album Limbo -- okay, it was only three years ago, but it may feel like a lifetime to some of you.
Sky Motel opens with the single "Echo," which lures you in with innocent sounding bongos, plucky guitar, and Hersh's soft, storybook-like vocals. It soon diverts into a solid rock movement with the impassioned quasi-refrain "I'm scaring everybody/ I'm wearing everybody down/ I'm chasing everybody/ I'm shaking everybody down." There is nothing straight and even about any of the tracks on Sky Motel, which is one of the qualities that makes it so interesting -- it manages to keep you guessing while maintaining a superior consistency of songcraft. In "White Trash Moon," Hersh sings at once hauntingly and comically about living in the California desert, "under the horny sun of July." "Costa Rica" is one of the most intriguing contributions to this record, for its simultaneous subtleness and fierceness completely displays Hersh's musical dichotomy; it goes from being moody and malleable to knowing exactly what it wants with a strong rock refrain that you wish lasted a little longer. "Cleaner Light," the one fully caffeinated song on Motel, depicts Hersh's longtime struggle with her creative demons and the exploitation of them by the press; she sings, "Keep away from the freaks on the fringe/ They only talk to you/ 'Cause you give them a good excuse to cry." "Clay Feet" is a slow, sticky, and sensual ode to L.A. that actually makes me want to go there.
All of the songs on Sky Motel, like on any Kristin Hersh or Throwing Muses album, make you feel like a lost traveler wandering through the labyrinth of a highly creative mind without a handful of bread crumbs to find your way back. But once Hersh's infective music takes hold of you, staying lost is like a lovely, eerie, and emotionally eye-opening vacation.
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