Not necessarily of her own volition, Kristin Hersh spent part of the time in which she wrote the material for Moonlight Concessions living out of a van in Southern California. It may not be the kind of lifestyle choice we’d expect one of the nineties alt rock icons to have bought into, but the people she met and the experiences they relayed to her indelibly shaped the record’s ultimate path.
Self produced, it comes five years on from it’s occasionally underwhelming predecessor Sun Racket, however whilst Hersh’s growling voice remains a siren call, this fourth album since Throwing Muses’ reformation is comfortably their best of this new incarnation.
One of it’s defining qualities is the almost omnipresent cello of Pete Harvey, a brooding counterpoint to songs which range in mode from rusty cowboy slowcore (Theremini) to the more familiar post grunge (Drugstore Drastic). At a meager nine songs and running to less than half an hour, there’s a case for much more, coming especially from tracks like Libretto and the screeching thrill of Albatross. It seems that wherever your home is, it can still be a muse to be reckoned with.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 