Learn to Sing Like a Star

iTunes Review

Throughout her long career with Throwing Muses, 50 Ft. Wave and as a solo performer, Kristin Hersh has crafted a catalog that’s equal parts avant-garde and alternative pop. You can’t understand her quickly. She subverts pop conventions with subtle movements, using her stream-of-consciousness to engineer both lyrical and musical lines that translate as journeys into a surreal world with no real beginning, middle or end. Learn to Sing Like A Star, self-produced with engineers Trina Shoemaker and Steve Rizzo, and musically accompanied by Muses drummer David Marcizo and The McCarricks string section, is another punk-instigated burst of psychedelia. True to her conflicting nature, Hersh is too prickly for the sweet sun-dappled haze of her ‘60s influences and too elusive and contemplative for her punk roots. This leaves her in an intriguing musical no-man’s land. Is she the gravelly blues shouter of “Under the Gun?” The slightly caustic yet pastoral songwriter behind “Ice?” These stylistic jumps are accompanied by adventurous sonic touches, her guitars ranging from ruddy acoustics to haunting tremolo-ed electrics with the string orchestration deepening the drama throughout. Enjoyably weird.