(Fire)
For their 11th album in a nearly 40-year career, the alt-rockers switch focus to acoustic guitars and cello – but their tumultuous tales are still charged with elemental power

Few bands have seesawed between melody and noise with as much emotional complexity as Throwing Muses, but for the alt-rock trio’s 11th studio album in almost 40 years they upend everything. The guitars are mostly acoustic, the drums are shelved in favour of minimal percussion, and the lead instrument is often Pete Harvey’s cello, its brooding, portent-heavy sigh the perfect accompaniment for singer/guitarist Kristin Hersh’s silvery snarl.

There’s not a note wasted across these nine tracks, which conjure a dark, parched ambience akin to Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged session: that same austerity and tension. It suits these vignettes of American subterranea – blurry but resonant snapshots of lives becoming unhemmed, with violence often on the horizon. The primal strum of South Coast plays out a noirish tale of desperation. The brooding blues of Drugstore Drastic unspools a narrative of addiction and helplessness, people “moving weirdly slow-mo”.