50 Foot Wave

★★★ Black Pearl FIRE. CD/DL/LP

The first sighting in six years of Kristin Hersh’s on-off ‘other band’.

While Kristin Hersh’s solo or Throwing Muses work has invariably been her major priority, for two decades her three-piece 50 Foot Wave have lurked in the background, a safe, if only occasionally-visited harbour. Preferring EPs to LPs, the seven tracks on Black

Pearl (titled after the New Orleans district where it was recorded) total just over 30 minutes, but only a fool prefers quantity to quality and Hersh is on sterling form here. The formula remains unchanged: fellow Throwing Muse Bernard Georges pumping out hypnotic, dubby basslines, most floorquakingly on the fearsome Blush, while Rob Ahlers hits his drums with Bill Ward-esque power. Above them Hersh adds guitar intricacy and her trademark dislocated vocals. At its best, it harkens to long-lost, densesounding riff grinders such as Breaking Circus or Earth, but there’s light as well as shade too and Broken Sugar positively twinkles.