Pitchfork

If you're looking for Kristin Hersh's impact on music in the '90s, you won't have to look far. It can be found in the versed resignation of Polly Jean Harvey, or the pompous wailing of Courtney Love, or the countrified yowling of the Geraldine Fibbers' Carla Bozulich, or any of the countless other vocalists who've learned to eccentrically accentuate the negative. And all of this groundlaying can be heard in just the first half of the first disc of In A Doghouse.

That half, which is also the first half of the band's 1986 4AD debut of the same name, is only one quarter of material in this two-disc set of music never before available in the United States, save for the import bins. It's also a history lesson-- these songs are probably all too familiar to any of Throwing Muses' fanatical followers (most are), but a little revision never hurts, for fans and casual listeners alike.

When "Call Me" opens with a pitter-pat guitar melody and Hersh covers about three octaves and many more tempo changes before the first minute has elapsed, it's clear even 12 years on that this is a band that had few peers when it started recording its fully unique hybrid of glam, punk, goth and country. Hersh, who was 20 going on 40 when In A Doghouse was recorded, quivers as if the demons inside her are being exorcized-- and not enjoying it. Yet, she's in control, and that's the scariest part, because singers who can lilt their voices into the submission of "Hate My Way"'s chorus aren't supposed to segue that into a blood-curdling screech. Hersh makes it sound like it should be sung no other way.

By the time "America" (a song which, along with "Sinkhole" from the Doghouse EP, is undoubtedly the blueprint for the Geraldine Fibbers' Butch) starts up, with its cow bells and hoedown pace, Hersh comes close to speaking in tongues and doesn't come near sounding like any female vocalist before her. Some people have said that she was insane when writing and recording this music. She was probably close, but there is too much premeditation here for any of these songs to be born out of insanity. There are few first efforts by any band that can match In A Doghouse or the thicker sounding Chains Changed EP (1987) tacked to the end of this first disc.

But wait! There's more!

In A Doghouse is actually version 1.5; a self-released demo cassette was released the year before with many of the same songs that appeared on the studio album a year later. Other than sating the appetites of completists, the Doghouse demo is worth inclusion because, amazingly, it doesn't sound like a demo. In some cases, the EP version actually sounds better than the LP version. Case in point: the up-close minimalism of "Hate My Way" sounds like it was delivered from a confessional; the LP version, while still great, goes heavy on the reverb, which undermines the song's emotion. Hersh's first instincts seem to be her best.

But you might want to hold judgement on that last statement, because the cherry on top of this sundae are five tracks written when Hersh was barely driving age, and not recorded until 1996, about a year before the band broke up. It wasn't the same band, and it wasn't the same Kristin. Hersh switches to an acoustic guitar and sounds almost like she's poking fun at her old self on "Catch," and Doghouse stays true to the ferocity of early Muses, but the sonic meltdown is something else altogether.

So maybe it's not Hersh's first instincts that are best, maybe it's all her instincts. When every song could be classic, it's best to cover all your bases, which makes In A Doghouse required listening for completists and non-completists alike.