Customer Reviews

House Tornado

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought the Ep cassette of "The Fat Skier" based on an interview in some low-rent alternative rock rag of the day. I remember reading how they would mock the then popular song of the day (won't name names) and think "These girls have something going on ..." When I bought the Ep I was really intrigued by the difficult nature of the music. Its complex and really simple at the same time, which while it might not impact you immediately, has a tendency to grow on you. So much so that I played that thing over and over and over ...

When House Tornado was released, I must have gotten it the first week of its release. No one I knew had a clue who this band were, but this album has remained one of my favorites for years and years. Kristin Hersh's lyrics are so impossible to understand, like some synaesthesias (A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.) nightmare vision of the tedium of daily life. Words and phrases that seem just thrown together that create an image in your mind. Add to that mixture Tonya Donnely's cute oddities, the feminine power of the band is undeniable. Until this time, I had wondered (in my post-feminist way) why there weren't any good girl rockers. The Throwing Muses are an example to them all. A real artist's approach to music.

Even today ... as I'm writing this in 2005 ... I am playing "House Tornado" continuously in my car. Normally I'll move on after an album ends, but this is one of those records that just demands continuous play. Almost as if it has no end or beginning and no matter how hard you try, you can never get to the bottom of the music to find a place where you can sum it up and put it away.

These two records will always be favorites of mine.

I heard "Juno" from this album when I was in 10th grade, and it totally changed the direction of my musical taste. I think I can safely say that "House Tornado" was the pinnacle of Throwing Muses' achievement, and proof that not everything that was recorded in the 80's sounds like the 80's. Superb lyrics and richly textured, quirky, complex music come together in a way here in a way that isn't heard on any of their later releases. The import version is WELL WORTH the extra $$$. The packaging is fantastic (bears no resemblance to the thumbnail photo here on Amazon, which is the US-only version), and it includes the very out-of-print "Fat Skier" EP, which is a must for any Throwing Muses fan.

I would highly suggest picking up the import version of "House Tornado" so you won't miss out on its sidekick "the Fat Skier". Some of the best songs ever penned by Kristin Hersh appear on these two wonderful releases. Hersh writes the coolest, craziest lyrics and the music that accompanies them is amazing. It's not all poppy-sounding like their more recent stuff which is why I love it so much. There are so many energetic emotional songs on this disc. Oh I love it.

I need to start this quote with another amazon user's take on this disc:

"But seriously, HOUSE TORNADO is just a rehash of the Muses' first album. The same eccentic vocals, wailing guitars, and odd time signatures are here. However, HOUSE TORNADO is of significantly lower quality than the first album. David Narcizo's drumming is often astoundingly great, but the songs are not written to emphasize it and it disappears quite a bit in the poor production."

Because you can take most of what he said, invert it, and you'd be correct. First, House Tornado is quite different from anything that preceded or came after it. It's really a dressed up acoustic album. An album of quiet songs that are played hard and passionately. The production on the record is beautiful. It was done with Paul Kolderie of Dinosaour Jr, Buffalo Tom, Hole, etc. fame. I particularly enjoy the emphasis on the acoustic guitar which was pretty rare for this era. You can actually hear the Muses guitar strings as they strum and change chords.

The real reason to get the import version of this is "The Fat Skier." It's just about impossible to find, and it's just as essential of a part of the Throwing muses catalog as any of their best music.

As for the comment that Kristin Hersh has "eccentric vocals" on this record....well, that's about as telling as commenting to someone that "its so boring that Jimi Hendrix played his guitar with so much distortion."

I don't know what's behind those critics reamarks above, but this is certainly a fantastic release by the Muses. Yes, it is a departure from conventional rythyms and spends a fair amount of time outside the norm, but the uses of countermelody and signature changes makes this album all the more brilliant. I think the band took some chances with this sound and, by and large, they succeeded. But don't let these comments fool you; despite its quirckiness, this album has many catchy moments and is immensely likeable. 6 stars.

I bought The Fat Skier EP on vinyl back in the mid 80's & liked & listened to it alot. I'd still be playing that vinyl, but my cartridge is shot. So I was very happy to see it come out on the CD along with House Tornado.

I ordered it almost immediately. It wasn't until I had it in my hands though, that I was shocked & very disappointed to notice that my favorite song off of the EP was not included. Soul Soldier is NOT on this release. Though I am happy to get House Tornado which I had never heard, I honestly don't know if I would've bought it had I noticed beforehand that Soul Soldier was missing from the EP.

I did a quick scan of the other reviews & didn't notice any of them mentioning this fact, & I thought it worth mentioning.

i remember buying this album (it was the import version) in 9th grade, which would be 1988 for me. it is still one of my favorite albums. i always loved kristin hersh's rantings and ravings...and they were pretty experimental then...lots of great percussion, and that great post-punk/hillbilly sound. their early records were very edgy, very free association, and very loud. going to see them live was the ultimate, but listening to their first album (now out of print) and house tornado is about as close as you can get to GOOD music from the late 1980s. it certainly kept me company.

Critics are an exasperating lot. They pine all day about the lack of originality in music, but blanch when confronted with something truly unique that falls outside the safe harbor of accepted praise-worthy hype darlings, e.g. REM or Sleater-Kinney.

I bring up these two acts in particular, because both share marked similarities with Throwing Muses. And while our man ravages House Tornado for having cryptic lyrics and off-kilter vocals, in doubt seriously that he's offered up much criticism of either Michael Stipe's arcane mumblings or S-K's caterwaul. And if tempo changes are a crime, might I suggest K.C. and the Sunshine Band.

Certainly, the edgy, unpredictable sound and dark, dense lyrics of House Tornado aren't for everyone. But if you're searching for a sound that's both unconventional and listenable, this disc sees the Muses at their most ambitious moment. Highlights for me include the spooky, intense "Mexican Women" and dreamy, evolving "The River." It's not perfect, and not every song is a winner, but you can't fault this great band for pushing the envelope.

Seek out the 4AD import of this CD, it's got the brilliant "The Fat Skier" EP tagged onto the end (which, typically, Sire let go out of print a decade ago) and much more appropriate art. Anyway, a more tightly controlled follow-up to their debut -- some songs (esp. the opening track) benefit from this control, while others suffer from, making me wish Ryko or somebody would put out a live CD, because live I remember they used to do these songs with an unforgettable, whirling, jet-and-estrogen-fueled abandon. Buy or die.

On their first album, Throwing Muses showed themselves a unique band that, though often associated with the hardcore punk scene, were exactly the opposite of it in terms of the complexity of their music, which managed to make the most dramatic changes in tempo and mood over extraordinarily short time spans. Kristin Hersh showed herself a singer comparable to Laura Nyro minus the soulful beauty, at times sounding almost like the traditional image of a witch whilst on other occasions sounding almost beautiful.

Their second album, "House Tornado", is no let-down from the debut. Indeed, Kristin Hersh stated that the jarring complexity of her songs on this album was so difficult to reproduce in a live context that she had no choice but to tone down this aspect for subsequent Muses albums. This character of the recording is evident from the very beginning, as each song is totally unpredictable from second to second, creating an amazingly deep sense of despair on second track "Mexican Woman", which shows Hersh' conflicted personality at its most extreme. "Juno" is equally complex and eerie, whilst "Saving Grace" (released as a rare EP) shows Hersh's voice at her most piercing and ecstatic without losing anything concerning emotional power. Opener "Colder" announces the tone of the album almost as well, even though the slower bit does not contrast as effectively. "Walking in the Dark", in contrast, is a beautiful piano-based ballad, but "Marriage Tree" is utterly furious even when David Narcizo's drums are not present - and when Hersh gets into the higher end of her vocal range the effect is amazingly memorable. "Run Letter" opens with a simple acoustic line and a fairly conventional acoustic guitar from Hersh's half-sister Tanya Donnelly, but the slight, high-pitched tone Hersh adopts when her electric guitar and Lesley Langston's bass enter is unique and really touching like good music should. The song does not quite move one to tears, but it comes as close as anything from the 1980s to doing so, even when Hersh moves as usual into a faster-paced part.

"Drive" is the simplest of Hersh's songs here, but still manages even with a seemingly one-note acoustic guitar as its dominant motif to be extremely fast yet never remotely overblown or pompous: indeed when one hears the very simple assorted percussion in the background one knows that Hersh is showing her skill at arranging - which makes her as an all-round musician clearly someone of remarkable natural talent. Tanya Donnelly's two songs "River" and "Giant" are even simpler but more atmospheric, and do not detract from the overall excellence of "House Tornado". "River"'s intro is particularly stunning with its simple, hypnotic drum line.

Before recording "House Tornado" and gaining Americna distribution via Sire, The Muses had released a six-track EP "The Fat Skier". Opener "Garoux des Larmes" is probably the most consistently hot piece the Muses were ever to record, lacking the quiet parts that were to add contrast to almost every song on "House Tornado". This does not mean a lack of variety: there are some particularly amazing drum textures by Narcizo. Tanya Donnelly's "Pools in Eyes" is a song that manages in an extremely rare way to be touching and feminine and at the same time rock very fiercely indeed: it is amazing how her voice is so beautifully clear over the fierce backing of Hersh, Langston and Narcizo. "A Feeling" is a quaintly beautiful Hersh song that manages to sound softer than even her later acoustic solo records. "Soap and Water" in contrast, is a blisteringly fast, but almost totally acoustic piece that showed Hersh's amazing skill in making musical opposites sound so perfectly complementary - and she has the right voice to pull it off so perfectly. Artists like Joni Mitchell might have tried to play acoustic music very fast beforehand, but they never had the natural skill to do it like Hersh could. "And a She-Wolf After the War" is the most familiar piece on "The Fat Skier", and also the closest to the sound of "House Tornado", and has the classic touching beauty and fierce playing.

All in all, "House Tornado" and "The Fat Skier" stand as a wonderful follow-up to the Muses' brilliant debut. It is easy to see that few people imagined women like Hersh, Langston and Donnelly playing with the kind of virtuosity they did during this period, but Hersh's status as one of the most naturally skilled musicians in the rock world cannot be disputed after this effort. More than that, she has so much passion as to complement this skill like almost nobody else - New York Tendaberry-era Laura Nyro would come closest, but she seldom was so vicious as Hersh and the Muses could be.