Records: Kristin Hersh's Strange Angels

By Margaret Rimsky

Hersh, the former lead singer of Throwing Muses, definitely has the wrong idea, as she cultivates her Strange Angels theme with unsettling thoroughness. Like angels, her songs are hazily-defined, foolish, and just plain annoying; bring in "strange" and we see Hersh's attempt to make her angels searching and soulful. Sadly, her precious little creatures fall flat on their faces, smearing their cherry lip gloss all over themselves.

You'd think anyone with as much experience in the music industry as Hersh would be able to grasp the notion of melody, but that's not the case. Her melodies creep on like a dull rain, threatening to stop completely at every moment. As if this weren't enough, her liner notes read like stream-of-consciousness gone wrong. So wrong. Her passive-aggressive rants supply the whole girl-with-acoustic-guitar genre with a new mantra: "A doormat is good honest work."

Strange Angels breaks from its feigned whimsy every now and then, occasionally delivering welcome melodies. In "Gazebo Tree," Hersh starts using that raspy, seething voice to her advantage; her building melody and impassioned delivery stand out amidst the carelessness of the surrounding ruminations. Similarly, "Like You" transcends Hersh's usual glittering superficiality with a disarmingly penetrating seriousness. But just as your confidence starts to build, she repeatedly hits you over the head with her sparkly wand, and you realize, in her words, you're "not that drunk."

Hersh's tip-toeing voice on Strange Angels begs the accompaniment of Romy and Michelle's "girl power" dance, replete with leaps and turns. Hersh herself delivers the best criticism of the album on "Rock Candy Brains": "Must've been on mushrooms when you wrote that pile of junk."

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