Recently, we've been enjoying reading all about The Others' guerrilla gigging antics. It's all been entertaining stuff, with stories of shows up trees, in Radio 1's reception area and on rush-hour tube trains and certainly heavy on the headlines, but for all Dominic Masters' imagination and ingenuity, his band don't entirely own the patent on such methods.
No, I grant you that legendarily kooky'n'intense American indie goddess Kristin Hersh isn't exactly a name that springs to mind when considering guerrilla gigging, but it's true that with her new power trio 50 FOOT WAVE, Ms.Hersh has mastered her own form of commando-style raids, playing clubs the length and breadth of the US (and touching down this side of the pond when possible, too) to spread the band's tough, rifftastic gospel with a determined, neo-military precision.
The only thing that surprises your reviewer about "Golden Ocean" is that it's actually a full-length album. Research into the band's modus operandi via their website when their eponymous 6-track mini-album debut appeared suggested they would remain true to this format, releasing new 6-track opuses roughly every 9 months or so and eschewing the regular album format. What has changed Kristin's mind in the meantime is unknown, but hey: everyone's allowed a change of heart, aren't they?
Besides, even in this 11-track format, 50 FOOT WAVES, Hersh, bassist Bernard Georges and drummer Rob Ahlers pull precious few punches. The whole album clocks in at a streamlined 37 minutes and the trio only ever momentarily take their collective feet off the gas as their punk rock juggernaut lurches forward, leaving you to eat their impressive dust.
Actually, several of the tracks are reprised from their debut, so may well already be familiar to devotees. Opener "Long Painting" is one and it doesn't disappoint: it stretches into life on a tidal wave of viscerality and the band making with a drilled power trio sound that (sorry, but it does) reminds you favourably of Nirvana in their prime. Hersh's vocals are raunchy and nicotine-stained, her guitar is bitten-off and vengeful, while Georges' basslines are twangy and melody-hugging and drummer Ahlers is a real find: he's propulsive, muscular and inventive throughout, every inch a match for one Mr.Grohl, who does spring to mind in places.
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"Dog Days" and "Clara Bow" are also reprised from the mini-LP. The former starts with mountainous drums and swerving guitars and finds Kristin shrieking her lungs raw with the brilliant pay-off line "Don't touch me, I don't know where you've been", which is both hilarious and harrowing all rolled into one. "Clara Bow", meanwhile, is about as anthemic and no-nonsense as you can get and VERY reminiscent of "Nevermind", although the way Kristin delivers the line "bones are made to be broken" is eerily reminiscent of old touring mate Black Francis himself.
Most of the album's 8 new fizzing shag-grenades deviate little from this blueprint, but in 50 Foot Wave's case, it's very much a case of not fixing what ain't already broke. Tracks like "Pnuema" and "Petal" trail powerful Punk rock colours, spitting riffs like a malignant concrete mixer , while the looming and fierce likes of "Bone China" and the diseased, drum-heavy "Ginger Park" (a childhood reminiscence of growing up in an American seaside town, believe it or not) recall the west-coast likes of Black Flag, unlikely as that may sound.
Barring the occasional foray into dippy and bizarre angularity (such as on "Sally Is Girl" where Hersh eases off the FX pedals and sings in that wide-eyed, sing-song Beefheartian delivery she patented years ago) "Golden Ocean" is an exercise in exhilarating viscerality which finds Kristin Hersh succumbing to that time-honoured tradition of wanting to let your hair down and ROCK. It makes absolutely no concessions whatsoever to the acousticism that characterises classic Hersh solo work (like, say "Hips & Makers"), which may put off some of the purists, but for the rest of us, "Golden Ocean"s waters are truly inviting. If I were you, I'd dive in without inhibition.
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