Customer Reviews

In a Doghouse

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IN A DOGHOUSE is a marvelous collection of early material from Throwing Muses, a group of New England youngsters who became the first American signing to the influential British label 4AD. The first disc includes their first, eponymously titled album from 1986 and 1987's "Chains Changed" EP. The second disc is "The Doghouse Cassette", the band's demo to 4AD, and finally five early written songs performed by the Throwing Muses' 1996 lineup.

The first album was ironically never available domestically in the United States, one could get it only as an import from savvy record shops. That it has been re-released as part of IN A DOGHOUSE is a fortunate event. This was one of the most influential indie albums of the 1980's, with its raw sound that preshadowed the Pixies and grunge rock. The superb musical talent of this quartet is what makes this album stand out. David Narcizo, recognized as a drumming legend hardly out of high school, provides a distinctive sound by eschewing cymbals. His ability to jump from one complex time signature to another has always remained the Muses' greatest strength. Bassist Leslie Langston gives quite a punch, especially on songs like "Fear" and "Soul Soldier". Finally, the duo of half-sisters Kristin Hersh and Tonya Donnelly, on rhythm guitar and lead guitar respectively, provided a razor-sharp sound that accompanied the lyrics perfectly. During this time Hersh suffered an extreme form of bipolar disorder that caused her to hallucinate, resulted in lyrics like a William S. Burroughs novel. This fierceness, together with the outstanding musical ability, made the early Throwing Muses an even more original band.

The "Chains Changed" EP resembles the first album, but Narcizo's drumming is, somehow, even better. On "Finished", the band twists through a myriad of musical changes that rivals anything progressive rock ever put out. The closing track "Cry Baby Cry" touches the heart with Hersh's passionate vocals and minimalist production.

"The Doghouse Cassette" features many of the songs from their first album, though in less-polished form. It's a great chance for fans to hear lesser-known songs like the curious theology-centered "Sinkhole" and the wild "Fish" (which appeared in a different version on 4AD's 1987 compilation LONELY IS AN EYESORE).

The five early songs performed by the 1996 line-up are rather different from the other material of IN A DOGHOUSE. By this time, Tonya Donnelly had left and Kristin Hersh had essentially turned the Throwing Muses into a solo project. As a result, the band doesn't sound as multi-faceted as on the first album, and in my opinion that is a great loss. Nonetheless, the songwriting is good. This is the only place (besides a limited-edition 1992 concert album) to hear the live-favourite "Catch".

If you've never heard Throwing Muses but like any of the acts ever signed to the 4AD label, especially the Pixies, IN A DOGHOUSE is a sure bet for excellent music.

I can honestly say that the Throwing Muses first LP (self-titled), which is part of their newest release In A Doghouse, is probably one of the only CDs that I bought in my teens and still actually love and listen to regularly. For me it was erratic music for erratic times, but even now I really appreciate Kristin Hersh's perspective on things. What still amazes me is how layered their music was then-a post-punk/hillbilly sound full of dissonance and blood and guts charisma. The dual guitar, multi-vocal assault on tracks like "Vicky's Box," "Rabbits Dying," and 'Fear" are pretty astounding (especially considering their later sound was totally void of this effect). Hersh's free-association semi-poetic lyrics and grungy singing style provide for an extra potent experience. She has a very distinct voice, full of pain and chaos and excitement all at once. Their debut also has some of the best percussion you'll ever hear in any rock record...lots of wacky cow bells and snare solos (see "America" and "Fear"). But aside from all their experimentation, this is just basically a GREAT rock album, from a time when good rock music was few and far-between. I would say that they are the Velvet Underground of the eighties, but Im sure a lot of people would disagree. The other tracks on this compilation, from the Chains Changed EP and their earlier Doghouse Cassette are also very satisfying, although I would say that the Chains Changed EP is arguably over-produced. The Throwing Muses have a sound that is a lot like letting loose a wild animal, and i think the spontanious sound they perfected on their debut gets covered up a bit in Chains Changed. But I would check out "Finished," which is pretty amazing. Fans of this period of their music should also really get their hands on their 6 song EP The Fat Skier. Some of their best music is layed out with their usual blood and chaos on those tracks. I think its only available on 4AD import.

this is the stuff right here. a great double disc. taking the muses debut and adding the follow up ep's was a great idea. but it just gets better as disc 2 adds some demos and other odds and ins. very well put together. i'm so glad 4ad did this. the music is of course amazing. a young hersh & donelly are very shape here. hersh is really in rare form here. it's great stuff all over the place. the b sides on disc 1. and demos on disc 2. are amazing stuff and right up there with the debut stuff. it's great that this stuff is out there and no longer rare and hard to find. i first got into the muses in a very unusual way. i saw them on Conan when university came out. man conan gets some good music guest doesn't he. i wish i had it on tape. anyway i think they played Shimmer. it was a great. and hersh really caught my eye. anyway this is really worth getting :)

Until I heard this album, I didn't understand how anyone who didn't like the symphony could consider him/herself a "music snob". Now I understand. This stuff is about as good as you can get with electric guitars. Not shabby in the least.

While at the time of the release of this re-issue I already had their self-titled album, and even the 1985 cassette demo, this was the catalyst (I need an umbrella, if I'm gonna slit my wrists) that got Throwing Muses up firmly into the slot of #2 all-time favorite band for me, after already having been well into them for years. Partly it was hearing the contrast between the demo tape (as cool as it is) and the unbelievable *tightness* and power of the debut album. Every single song on that LP is incredibly strong and assured. They really never hit this same level of vitality and intensity again. The four songs comprising the _Chains Changed_ EP are almost as good; what a powerful disc they make together. Again, for me the primary role of the 1985 demo tape is to draw attention the mind-boggling excellence of its successor, and the five rerecorded ancient Throwing Muses songs are interesting listening, but really this is a review of the self-titled LP. I am at a loss for many more words to describe how awestruck I am now by that definitive opus. Get _In A Doghouse_ for that alone; the rest is a pure bonus.

This long-awaited release contains what I feel to be the Muses best work, the CHAINS CHANGED ep. Four to-the-point, incredibly well-produced songs, great lyrics, wild, stop-start, layered instruments. It defies description. The first album (included) is also great, but, takes itself a BIT too seriously for me, and the sound is a tad murky. The demo's and other stuff are great, especially "And a She-Wolf..." and "Raise The Roof", which I remember them performing live WAAAAAY back when they first were touring. I prefer this material to the more radio-friendly, samey-guitar-sound later Muses stuff. However, that aside, this is a great bunch of music, and, at it's best, it defies description without being arty poetry... Re-C0-Mmen-Ded!

the most important album in my collection. their first album is amazing and the demo is even more amazing in it's sheer raw power. this is emotional. hate my way, call me, vicky's box, fear, america (she can't saw no),fish,cry baby cry, finished- all fiercely great songs. kristin isn't crazy,she is right-these songs are real. two of tanya's finest songs ever- green and reel. includes the breath-taking video of fish. a must have album. it will change your life.

Where was I to miss this one! I had been on a string of mediocre and disappointing CDs purchases but this album has rejuvenated me. I was always a fan of Belly but have been disappointed with some of the more recent Tanya Donnelly albums. I liked The Real Ramona and thought the Breeders were good but nothing prepared me for this album. Stunning- with several songs that immediately went up there with my all time favorite- particularly "Hate My Way". I won't go on repeating what the other review say but I agree with them- intense, fierce, with some jarring style and rhythm changes mid song- all of it leaving you with some memorable music!

Although for some time I have appreciated immensely the music of the Cocteau Twins, the Red House Painters and Dead Can Dance, Kristin Hersh and her band Throwing Muses I had previously seen as too close to simplistic hardcore punk because of the fact that in their early days they cited themselves as influenced thereby.

It was only recently when I was heard Throwing Muses mentioned by Spires That in the Sunset Rise when discussing their 2005 masterwork Four Winds the Walker that I became curious as to whether Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donnelly in their early incarnation were really different from the awful grunge and punk/pop sounds of the 1990s or the violent hardcore of the early 1980s. What Hersh, Donnelly, bassist Leslie Langston and drummer David Narcizo on Throwing Muses early albums (indeed up until the loss of Langston) actually created is music with a complexity that makes most progressive rock of the 1970s look extremely simple by comparison. Instead of writing multi-part songs that change style every few minutes, the music Kristin Hersh wrote for "Throwing Muses" and the EP "Chains Changed" changes style, tempo and time signature every verse or so. It never, even for a moment, sounds as if there is any hint of the normal verse/bridge/chorus song structure even though there is repetition in every song. The most obvious illustration of the complexity of Hersh's songwriting is "Soul Soldier", which begins with a dense, quasi-acoustic line that is so tight it is almost impossible to distinguish the three guitars, and where Hersh's piercing voice achieves more tunefulness than ever even when Narcizo's hard-hitting drums come in. The song then moves into more typical 4AD-sounding acoustic lines with a simple, pure vocal from Hersh that are all the more beautiful for being contrasted with such tight, energetic music. It then goes into a faster drum solo before returning to the quiet passage and then to a free, apparently orchestrated part. Then the quiet, semi-acoustic part (which one can see as the equivalent of a "chorus") ends the song with a simple acoustic part as the finale.

The remainder of "Throwing Muses" does not have quite obvious complexity of "Soul Soldier", instead changing mood all the time, as in "Hate My Way" and "Call Me", where very fast passages alternate with slower ones in a manner remarkably unpredictable. The slow section of "Call Me" gives way to a "bridge"-like structure rather than to the verse. Then at the end Hersh's despairing call sounds all the more realistic. "Hate My Way" has a violent groove that turns to despair and softness in a very different way as Narcizo turns to a quiet rhythm when Hersh sings "I can't rise above the church" and then to a line where her voice sounds more like a genuine "witch" than anything else in rock. The demo on the second disc is even rawer in the intro, with every note Narcizo plays all the more audible. "Vicky's Box" is not quite so jarring but the groovy finale is particularly impressive, whilst "Rabbits Dying" continues in the same vein whereby Hersh's changes in vocal tone carry songs even though she has nothing like the power of a Laura Nyro or a Kate Bush. The medieval intro/outro is another interesting touch.

"America" is simpler in structure but even more dramatic in vocals, with Hersh sounding like speaking in tongues, "Fear" is a strikingly sensous and eerie ballad in which every "ah" carries more emotion than metal screaming ever could, and "Stand Up" is pure tension like little else. Closer "Delicate Cutters" is a strangely beautiful acoustic piece that hints at Hersh's 1990s solo work, whilst the Tanya Donnelly-penned "Green" is much gentler and less energetic than Hersh's songs but still wonderfully beautiful on the album version and strangely quiet as a demo. "Raise the Roses", which did not make the album, is a little less relaxed but still not like Hersh's material, whilst "And A She-Wolf After the War" and "Fish" show Hersh could carry genuine tunes with no loss of the tightness that makes these songs so good. "Sinkhole" is a description of a damned woman which lacks the beauty of other piece here but it is still very good.

The EP "Chains Changed" was released later in 1986, and opens with the visceral rocker "Finished" where the quiet passages are harsh and the full-band ones oddly melodic to create a strange yet wonderful song. Tanya Donnelly's "Reel" is closer to the Hersh compositions than her other songs, but the soft, almost inaudible voice is a surprise, whilst "Snail Head" is a straight-ahead and really catchy pop song which could have caught on college radio had it been marketed to do so.

All in all, this is a lengthy collection but reveals a superb band that I feel a little guilty for overlooking in so many years of reading. Music of utter spontaneity and often very catchy but with a complexity that can result only from free play with the undoubtedly outstanding natural musical gifts of Hersh, Donnelly, Langston and Narcizo is something one will rarely hear.

This rules. Throwing Muses back when they were truly unique and hungry. The later stuff is good (especially The Real Ramona), but to be honest, I think Kristin watered the sound of the band down a bit.

This early material is raw and sometimes vicious, yet insanely catchy. Get it.