Concerts

Witness the off-kilter alt rock stylings of Throwing Muses’ Kristin Hersh in Boston

Hersh is set to play City Winery on May 30 with her Muses bandmate, Fred Abong.

Singer-songwriter Kristin Hersh. Handout

By Arianna MacNeill

1 minute to read

Kristin Hersh may be known for her work with alternative rock band Throwing Muses — in particular for being the unapologetic mastermind behind most of their surreal, trippy lyrics — but the musician (and author!) also has a thriving solo career.

Hersh — with bassist Fred Abong, also of Throwing Muses along with the ’90s indie pop band Belly — are set to play City Winery on Monday, May 30.

In her decades-long career, Hersh has not only led Throwing Muses (along with her talented stepsister Tanya Donnely, also now a Belly alum), she also worked with 50FOOTWAVE. All together, she has released over 20 albums, according to City Winery.

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“Kristin Hersh’s off-kilter power pop makes the familiar feel eerily out of place and the confounding comforting, kind of like describing a dream within a dream,” a reviewer for Magnet Magazine wrote after Hersh and Abong played a show in Philadelphia in June 2019.

“The same could be said of her show at Boot & Saddle by Kristin Hersh’s ‘electric trio’ (not to be confused with Hersh’s electric trio Throwing Muses or her electric trio 50FOOTWAVE), which plowed through a half-dozen tunes from last year’s ‘Possible Dust Clouds,’ plus a smattering of songs from both of her mighty bands and her solo albums,” the magazine wrote.

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Calling her the “godmother of feminist college indie,” Soundblab gave a positive review of Hersh’s most recent album, “Possible Dust Clouds,” released in 2018.

“‘Possible Dust Clouds’ is an apotheosis, a point in time in Hersh’s personal career where she seems to have found the freedom to steer a less dissonant emotional path,” the reviewer wrote. “Less fraught and more confident. Gone are the tumults of many songs in her oeuvre. It’s a remarkably consistent album, if not instantly likable.” 

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