Tue 8 Nov
words: NOEL GARDNER photos: SIMON AYRE
★★★★☆
Although people who unfailingly pitch a fit about every reformed band are tedious nitwits, American indie-rock royalty Throwing Muses should escape on a technicality, because they never actually broke up. They did stop touring in the late 90s, as it was costing too much, but continued to play infrequently, and were eventually coaxed back to the Primavera-type end of the festival circuit. This year has been their most active for quite some time, recording a new album and touring Europe – incorporating their first Cardiff date in 21 years. They were touring with their pals the Pixies that time, which invites a comparative study in dignified reformations: this here is definitely one, as much as tonight is largely about nostalgia.
For the uninitiated, Throwing Muses formed in early 80s Rhode Island and accrued a following among the UK’s indie faction in 1986, with their first album. Although there are people here who were probably present at that inception, it isn’t an overwhelmingly middle-aged crowd. Much like the Pixies, most of the Muses’ records were so divorced from fashion that they’ve gained a timeless nature. It’s stripped-down guitar rock – mostly written as a quartet, although they’re a trio currently – but skewed and screwy, with signatures and tunings that largely defy comparison. There’s an heroic lack of logic to the structures of the earlier songs they play – for example, Garoux Des Larmes and the intense screech of Vicky’s Box, which gets probably the best reaction of the evening.
It’s necessary to single out the voice behind the screech, of course: Muses singer and guitarist Kristin Hersh, who has also had a fruitful solo career and is the band’s primary face. Her lyrics, confessional yet obtuse and often dealing with her struggles with bipolarity (Hate My Way and Mania, both saved for the encore), are a big part of why people have found emotional recourse in Throwing Muses over the years. She’s something of a self-deprecation queen, too. “This place is beautiful! This isn’t going to go well. We’re not beautiful,” she says, taking the stage and surveying the former church’s interior. During the muddy mix of the first few songs, it looks like she might be correct – the sonics in here would likely have better suited a Hersh solo set – but by Bright Yellow Gun, a fine if alt-rockishly conventional song, it’s pretty much righted itself.
The layout of the room, with pews surrounding three sides and a rectangular floorspace in the centre, means that a sold-out gig is not actually that crowded. People do their fair share of whooping and hollering, though, with some dancing breaking out in the proverbial aisles. It’s a testament to the band that songs that would have had you mocked as a fruity weirdo, had you been caught listening to them in school, retain an addictive, serotonin-churning quality. The chorus to Shark, or the twangy country break in Tar Kissers; the thick psych and maxed-out drums of Furious. Getting to see a band who changed your life, in a way, and justify this by doing a lot more than just going through the motions.