This year, on a sweaty March evening at the Grace Emily Hotel, I went to see Kristin Hersh. She was touring her 2023 solo album Clear Pond Road and reading excerpts from her Vic Chesnutt memoir ‘Don’t Suck, Don’t Die’ as well as her contribution to the FUTURES series ‘The Future of Songwriting’. By happy coincidence, this was the day before the release of the latest Throwing Muses record ‘Moonlight Concessions’, and she had brought some ‘very illegal’ advanced copies of the vinyl along with her (mine was already in the mail). It wasn’t an especially prolific moment for an artist with near thirty albums and five books… if you’re able to catch one of her shows you’re as likely as I was to find yourself in a nexus of releases.
Hersh might be best known as the primary songwriter and creative force behind Throwing Muses, the band which, among many things, brought the weird and eerie to the 4AD sound. I’m convinced that they are one strategically placed song in Fight Club away from selling out theatres, they’re that important in the trajectory of ’80s college rock.
Alternately she might be known under her own name, where she has released twelve solo albums spanning dark acoustic chamber folk, alternative rock, Appalachian songs and more. While certainly not an artist who can be pigeon-holed, her song ‘Your Ghost’ featuring Michael Stipe was an underground hit, and on the four occasions I’ve managed to see her perform solo she has ended her set with that number.
It’s less likely that she would be known for 50 Foot Wave, the hard rock power trio. The Fire Records website describes them as ‘Kristin Hersh’s other band’ and their music as ‘grunge melancholy and dronecore menace’. I think that’s fair, particularly in reference to their 2022 record Black Pearl.
Golden Ocean catches the band in an earlier mode. There’s a lot of grunge, but not much in the way of melancholy. There’s brutal riffing. There’s an abundance of time signature changes. There’s honestly some of the best and least clichéd hard rock drumming this side of Jimmy Chamberlain.
Zooming out, you can hear this record coming when you listen to the self-titled Throwing Muses record from 2003. The sudden time signature and groove changes, Hersh’s developing vocal snarl, a grunge-inflected power and barre chord approach on guitars. Earlier Muses music often involved interlocking picked and arpeggiated guitar lines from Hersh and Donelly, reminiscent of the jangle of 80s indie music. On the 2003 record we start to hear an angularity to the guitar parts and boldness to the arrangements. Earlier (and more recent) Hersh music could be meditative and textural but in 2003 things were becoming more jagged.
Vocally, Hersh is a powerhouse on Golden Ocean. In her early career her voice had an agility but also when required a captivating frailty. This makes way for what can only be described as a roar, part Rid of Me-era PJ Harvey, part Black Francis or Kurt Cobain. Check out Pneuma from 2:30 mins onwards… I’ve probably irritated my throat more than once trying to sing along.
While I want to give credit to long-time Muses and 50 Foot Wave bassist Bernard Georges, always solid with a great tone, the other major force on this record is drummer Rob Ahlers. I believe, though I can’t find the reference, that Ahlers came at the recommendation of Muses drummer Dave Narcizo after he was unable to be involved in the project. Narcizo is a strong contributor in his own right, navigating and supporting Hersh’s twisty compositions in an accessible way, and with his own distinctive style. (His prominent use of China cymbal in an indie/alternate setting is notable, particularly when otherwise he is quite sparing with crash cymbals).
Ahlers is a monster on this album. The pure velocity and belting tone of Jimmy Chamberlain with the inventiveness and pocket of someone like Rob Ellis (another PJ Harvey reference… there’s more to come). Where Narcizo would write a drum part to give the audience as much of a solid foothold around Hersh’s songwriting wrinkles as possible, Ahlers highlights them and doubles down on them. The result is, at times, something akin to math-rock, where the expected groove is always being subverted. But unlike those bands, there’s also a maturity to the drum parts. The multitudinous fills all serve a purpose. It draws out playfulness and bombast in Hersh’s writing… you get the sense she was enjoying being handed the keys to this particular high-performance vehicle.
This early incarnation of 50 Foot Wave feels like Hersh is taking her cue from PJ Harvey’s first two records, Dry and Rid of Me. On the surface there’s a small lyrical reference… ‘gonna wash that man right out of my hair’ from Bone China recalls the same repeated line from Harvey’s Sheela-Na-Gig.
Beyond this, Hersh also uses some of the polyrhytmic ideas Harvey was making the basis of a number of her early songs. Much like Ahlers, Rob Ellis wrote drum parts which sometimes juxtaposed Harvey’s songs, underpinning them often with variations of quarter-note triplets creating a seductive push and pull feel. While I can understand PJ eventually wanting a support band that just played the songs as expected, and she got that on To Bring You My Love, it’s those first two records that are really captivating for me in no small part due to Ellis’s contributions.
Elsewhere there are some fairly classic half-time/double-time punk rock moves, but it is done so effortlessly and naturally that these don’t feel at all like imported rock clichés. Ginger Park is a great example and a real showcase of Ahlers ability to grab a song by the scruff of the neck.
The production from Ethan Allen is fantastic. Fairly liberal with the compression, it nonetheless gives each instrument wiggle room whilst remaining near the red most of the way. The drums are close to my ideal recorded drum sound, in no small part because Ahlers’s tone is just so good. Some people just know how to hit a snare drum. The guitars are big and buttery. It’s just a great mix for a power trio. Interestingly, Allen had previously produced other Hersh works including the somewhat more relaxed affair Sky Motel.
50 Foot Wave would put out one more album in this style, the 2009 record Power + Light, before becoming a little cleaner and a little more ‘math-oriented’ on the With Love From The Men’s Room and Bath White EPs. After a 6 year gap they would return with Black Pearl in 2022 which indeed is awash with ‘dronecore menace’ as the blurb suggests, the twists and turns of their earlier work smoothed out and replaced with sinister atmosphere. Yet I feel that Golden Ocean holds up as 50 Foot Wave’s definitive statement and a forgotten gem of 2005. As Pitchfork said, when they used to be occasionally interesting, ‘… one of Hersh’s former labelmates posited that motherhood equaled mental freeze. No doubt said labelmate never envisioned Kristin Hersh, mother of four, entering her 21st year as a professional musician, leading a group that runs laps around most rock bands.’*
Kristin Hersh recently uploaded an Instagram post of what looks like a mixing console with a print of the photo at the top of this post. Exciting things could be on their way.
*wow, there was a time when popular writers could expect the audience to catch a reference
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