Customer Reviews

The Grotto

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's taken me a while to like this album. I've been trying to listen to it, but the Throwing Muses album released on the same day has been played many more times than this album. I am really starting to like this album a lot.

I didn't like "Strange Angels" the first time I heard it because it wasn't "Hips & Makers." But it really grew on me after seeing Kristin live several years after "Strange Angels" had been released and after "Sunny Border Blue" was released. I think this album is going to be the same for me it will grow more on me and I'm sure it will become another Kristin favorite.

This album is taking it's time to grow on me. It's very different from "Sunny Border Blue." It has a deeper, more emotional edge to it.

Kristin's albums all have to be accepted in their own way. I can be in the mood to listen to Kristin, but it has to be a particular album depending on my mood. They all seem to be very telling of her life at the time she wrote the album. I love all of her albums, each in their own individual way. Sort of the way you love people - you can't love all of them as a collective, they are individuals and must be loved that way.

The violins on "Deep Wilson" give me the chills, they are amazing. There is something about the way that they sound that gives me a very odd sensation in my body. Like they make me shiver but not exactly shiver. Sort of flutter but not in a fairy sort of way. I don't know how to describe it.

If you are a Kristin fan! Buy this album. Don't dismiss it through the first few listens. Give it time and you'll grow to love it with each listen.

I have always been passionately in love with musical albums that no matter to how many they are beloved, suddenly become your own when listened to alone in your room or car. I lucked into randomly buying a tape of Throwing Muses' University on its release when I was in middle school-and listened to it on long bike rides across my rural county, but then I never got any other albums by them or Hersh. But approaching 10 years later now, hardened by hard times and from bringing home so many carefully made music store purchases that were good but not gut wrenching, nothing was seeming to melt the musical ice and reach inside me recently. That is, until I reconnected with Kristin Hersh's solo music, starting with The Grotto last spring.

The first few songs on The Grotto are immediately accessible; they make you wanna press repeat and not continue the album just yet because you've just found somethin' so good. I guiltily, sporadically repeated Sno Cat and Deep Wilson for several days, like I had just discovered some incredible, addictive food I kept plucking out of the kitchen cabinet whenever my willpower couldn't stand to wait anymore. Then, as you go deeper into The Grotto, you connect with all these other incredible songs. Right now, Vitamins V is my favorite. I can't tell you what it's supposed mean because even after dozens+ listens I still get caught up in each and every musical-lyrical moment of the song until I'm spit out on the other side of it; I could care less about the "big meaning." Something with a "mouth full of vodka," a "lukewarm catastrophe," "staring through the fishtank," and "I can't seem to lie to you," all of which only appear as words here uncoverted by her music. But don't be fooled, every single song on this album is its own speechless standout.

I have to disagree with others who say Kristin's voice has lost power with years. On The Grotto, her voice may be scratchier but seems more incredibly commanding and captivating than on her previous works, the perfect remedy for many other streamlined, contemporary vocalists who are still struggling to find new ways to make their one-dimensional angst or love interests not sound regurgitated, while this woman changed the subject years ago. Only Kristin's voice over that guitar, piano, and violin could give these lyrics such life.

Everything this woman has stepped out on her own to do just knocks me over: Hips and Makers, Strange Angels, Sunny Border Blue, and now The Grotto. Even with all the incredible artists on the Just Say Roe compilation, her Hysterical Bending stands out as setting a whole new musical standard you didn't even know existed. Hopefully, one day I can see her live. This woman is of another world, but, god, I'm glad she visited ours.

The allure of the music of Throwing Muses has always been in hearing schizophrenic disassociation from a safe distance. In her 20's, Kristen Hersh's free-form disconnects were expected - it was an independent woman's assertive exploration of contradictory impulses. Her myth was reinforced by real mental struggle, and an intense stage presence akin to satanic possession. In her 30's, Hersh put out a series of intense acoustic records -just her wailing angst against stringed instruments - that were spookier than anything the Muses ever did. Now we have two new Hersh creations - a new solo disc, The Grotto, and the first Muses record in eight years. The Grotto is Hersh's best solo work. In her 40's, she's still chasing a private muse, but her surreal insularity has either grown more linear or I've learned how to scan her images over the years. "SRB" is about a bad ... experience. "Ether" a lamentation on indifference. "Deep Wilson" a metaphor for love. It's gorgeous, difficult, thrilling music.

Back in 1994 Kristin Hersh released a quail-boned little album "Hips and Makers" that probably brought her closest to public success as ever. Hips and Makers was this collection of desperate, disenchanted acoustic songs that could never have kept up on an amped-up Throwing Muses' (Kristin's rock band) record. They seemed to just take flight on an intimate acoustic album and create an uncanny, electric power out of muscle and voice.

When Throwing Muses disbanded Kristin produced a handful of mostly acoustic solo albums. But rather then be the contituation of what she started with "Hips and Makers" these albums kind of became a make-do substitute for the defuct-Throwing Muses. These albums were great but were kind of middle-ground between Kristin Hersh and Throwing Muses.

Kristin's "The Grotto" is being released with the new self-titled Throwing Muses reunion album. And since "the Grotto" doesn't need to be some sort of surrogate Muses' album it returns and treads the old stomping ground mapped out in Hips and Makers so many years ago. The songs on "the Grotto" almost seem like missing b-sides to that album.

The song structures on "the Grotto" are pretty desolate and minimal. Gentle guitar work is blanketed by soft violins and piano. There are no real choruses to speak of, just some casual phrases or words repeated for emphasis. The songs don't really finish up nicely as much as they kind of wind down and run out of things to say on the matter. But when they're talking you can't help but to listen. They kind of remind me of some kind of wise old grandmother. Kristin has a way of demanding attention even when whispering.

I enjoy "the Grotto" and wish Kristin all the success in the world with it. Her albums always gain critical praise but I hope this album can gain public attention like "Hips and Makers", even though the "women in music" fad of 1994 is distant history. Kristin deserves to be noticed.

The music of Kristin Hersh always takes me someplace safe, warm and thoughtful. It transcends any other music I've heard. She is definitely one of the most underrated songwriters of our time. "The Grotto" is yet another example of her beautiful talent that is expressed so well and so true time and time again.

As Kristin's last solo effort, "Sunny Border Blue," is my favorite album of all time, I bought this one with some trepidation. Would it measure up?

Well, it did. It does. Kristin toned things down with this one; it's quiet & thrilling & it overwhelms me. "Deep Wilson" has been stuck in my head for about two months now. This woman can do no wrong.

Kristin Hersh's work straddles that seemingly impossible line that very few, very talented, musicians walk. Managing to be true to your sound and still create something that sounds new is not often heard. It would be impossible to say that anyone will like this album, but not impossible to say that anyone with an ear for good music could catch on. Stripped down to haunts of melody, with vocals that careen and crash, open and dive, The Grotto is a landmark for Hersh. It is amazing that she has never caught a larger audience, and a blessing for anyone who covets her genius.

The Grotto is a good pick if you are interested in albums that require multiple listens. After a while the songs inhabit your space and you feel like you always knew them. Gelb and Bird's additions to the recording are sublime. The flourishes of piano and violin suit Hersh's voice and guitar perfectly.

A lot like Strange Angels, kind of minimalist and quiet. Very different album considering all the rocking albums she did following this one though. Worth having for the completist as it definitely bookends the wide range of expression this artist is capable of. Try listening to this then her other band 50 Foot Wave's album Golden Ocean and you'll see what I mean. Awesome artist!

picked this up today at a record show just on the strength of Kristin's more 'rock' things.
what you DO get on this disc are Kristin's, as always, inspiring vocals and crusty lyrics, however, each song
is accompanied only by plain acoustic guitar, very nice, but, nothing overly engaging with an occasional piano shade or violin.