March 26, 2003

Throwing Muses : Throwing Muses

...one long roar of affirmation from start to finish...

8 / 10 The rules are brutal. Most bands get one shot at a career and that's it. How this would explain the long and varied existence of Providence, Rhode Island's Throwing Muses - a unit that's developed over eighteen years and survived several line-up changes - is a moot point.

The eponymous new album by Kristin Hersh, David Narcizo, Bernard Georges and Tanya Donelly is a raw blast of electric power that serves as a career coda, of sorts. With by turns viscous and vicious storms of drums, guitars and voice(s), it finds the whole idea of Throwing Muses pared to a molten core, with few extraneous niceties like decorative production or ornate musical shading. And it's one long roar of affirmation from start to finish.

Dele Fadele