A few months ago I attended a gig in The Village venue in Dublin by a new American band called 50ft Wave, the latest musical outlet for the prodigious talents of indie heroine Kristin Hersh. The audience was mostly comprised of fans of her previous work, be that the intricate and unsettling Throwing Muses or her quieter and marginally more serene solo releases. What we got was rather unexpected. Along with ex-Muses bassist Bernard Georges and Rob Ahlers on drums, she treated us to an hour of exhilarating noise more consistent with a metal band like the Deftones than previous Hersh hits such as Your Ghost. Down the front people were headbanging, at the back the talkers were stunned into silence. The music was pounding and relentless all the way and I for one was loving it…despite being slightly unsettled by the fact that the most rocking thing I’d seen in months was a band led by a 38 year old mother of 4.
Despite any domestic concerns the band might have, or perhaps as a result thereof, there is a lot this band could teach us all about creating music that could strip paint off walls with its sonic intensity. The first 50 Foot Wave album, Golden Ocean, was released last month and each of its 11 tracks is an entreaty to headbang with intent to cause serious whiplash. Hersh’s powerful guitar lines are perfectly underscored by Georges’ rumbling bass while Ahlers pounds the skins like his life depends on it. The songs are lent an extra air of immediacy due to the album having been recorded live with only vocal overdubs.
The band have previously described their sound as “math rock” and indeed the time signatures jump all over the place, sometimes changing several times within the one line. However the band don’t make a meal of this aspect of their sound, they employ their changes effectively to compliment their songs, not to define them. There are shades in here of everyone from Led Zeppelin (Petal) to Nirvana (Sally is a Girl) and Clara Bow would by no means have sounded out of place on Throwing Muses’ eponymous 2003 album. While Kristin’s interest in Led Zeppelin had previously been hinted at when she covered their track When the Levee Breaks as a b-side any influence of Metallica on her is more unexpected but there are moments, especially on Pneuma, that are very reminiscent of Hetfield et al (though with better drumming!)
The album as a whole sounds almost like a guide to metal through the last few decades, incorporating suggestions of every style from '70s rock to nu-metal but in a way that seems more coincidental than deliberate. There are no attempts to sound like other bands, it is more that sometimes influences seem obvious and comparisons become inevitable. Unlike most guitarists referencing bands like Led Zep and Metallica, Hersh goes in for little in the way of guitar solos and any that do exist are short and not overly complex. This never seems like a limitation of her guitar playing, more a musical frame of mind which rejects the notion of indulgence above immediacy. Also there is that unmistakable voice with which she growls and howls her way through each track like a woman possessed. She has always had a type of open throated scream – probably best described as the Exorcist effect in that it sounds more like five voices than one – and this is getting more hair raising with age. She sometimes sounds hoarse and raw but this serves only to increase the emotional intensity of her incredibly soul baring lyrics. There is no mistaking her anger or her sadness when she lets go.
On recent albums Kristin has espoused the sort of heartbreaking lyrical honesty that makes for slightly uncomfortable listening. Her main subject matter of late has been her marriage to her manager Billy O’Connell and on this album too there are references to their private trials and tribulations. Dog Days contains such deeply sad lines as “don’t touch me/I don’t know where you’ve been” and “I wake up a ton of un-kissed guilt/just keep telling me this is life and we didn’t miss it”. Her frustration is also evident on Bone China with its repeated refrain of “gonna wash that man right out of my head/and soap him into my eyes”. This is South Pacific as written by Sylvia Plath.
Despite the presence of Hersh and Georges in the band there are very few similarities between 50 Foot Wave and Throwing Muses. Musically this album is less complex in terms of melody and instrumentation than the early Muses’ records although still not as accessible as later releases such as University and Limbo. It is in many ways the polar opposite of her solo work, with the Muses back catalogue plonked firmly midway between the two. The lessons that Hersh learned from the demise of her first band (TM simply could not afford to continue and had to give way to Kristin’s more lucrative solo career) have been employed by the band and their management to ensure that 50 Foot Wave retain complete creative freedom while maintaining relatively healthy finances. To this end they are not signed to a record label in the US (they are licensed to 4AD in Europe) and make their money from touring and web based merchandising. They occupy a very alternative position and are happy to do so with Kristin recently remarking “I don’t want shows full of frat boys ever again” (a reference to their audiences after mainstream radio began to play Throwing Muses).
At one stage there was a plan afoot for the band to release three EPs and then an album but as far as I can tell this has fallen by the wayside as so far there has been one mini album plus Golden Ocean. Where the band will go from here is anyone’s guess. Hersh has shown that she is capable of a multitude of musical personalities and it’s never obvious what she is going to come up with next. For the moment at least we can savour her here at her abrasive, rocking best.