CROOKED | Kristin Hersh

Kristin Hersh’s “Crooked” is a collection of twisted imaginative alleyways, bursting blooms, and flowering flourishes. Admittedly, it’s difficult to penetrate the shrouded lyricism. There’s also the added temptation with enigmatic music, to try and associate it with the musicians themselves, as if their lives are the key to unlock all that seems hidden. But it’s best to enjoy “Crooked” for the spacious and organic puzzle that it is. Hersh has always created music that is more exorcised than meticulously fretted over. It gives her sound a sense of urgency (even on the down-tempo tracks), as if it’s forever expanding, like some Big Bang, with every listen. “Crooked” howls through a Cimmerian landscape of insects, cold wind, freeways, and rivers that conjure the devil and death — associations finding fertile ground in both man-made and nature-based images. Hersh growls across a Hammond organ on the album opener, “Mississippi Kite”. The song’s lyrical gloom is veiled by a veneer of jangly, upbeat electric blues guitar. Hersh couldn’t resist a darkly comedic Dorothy Parker-like wink about death in one of the verses: “gloss assails us, then dims / comic book nights / la grim / the hollywood martians / lucky stiffs / fucking win / you told me enough times you can’t give me enough rope / to hang myself one time, / but I can always hope.”

The music is articulate and raw. “Sand” slides across the switchblade edge of Patti Smith. “Crooked” moves with the elegant alt-country/rock gait of a Lucinda Williams track. “Moan”, like “Mississippi Kite”, owes a bit to Sonic Youth and grunge, with that staccato Nirvana-guitar style. The slow reverberation of the guitar, paired with Hersh’s breathy and deliberately drawn-out vocals, gives “Moan” a tangible lament. It’s a patient, lean song — an electric guitar seems to stretch itself out like a long sigh. Halfway into the track, it turns into a crystalline clear Neil Young linearity, before Hersh closes with these delayed vocals, “i’m jumping out of my skin / i’m jumping out of my skin again.” On “Glass”, Hersh sings a raspy vocal — “i give up / i give up” — like a female version of Axl Rose. The song transition at the 2:34 mark is unexpected and graceful, moving from a speedily strummed punk-rock guitar into flute, deep cello and blue mood.

“Crooked” can be a synonym for “askew”. It’s the sense that something is off. The tone of this album finds a foundation in that notion. The mood is sullen, but breathtakingly palpable. It becomes its own kind of sonic texture. “Krait” reaches a crescendo with acoustic guitar, piano, guitar fuzz and strained vocals, as all the sounds work both with and against a warped distortion. “Flooding” is the slowest track, and feels the most intimate. It washes over with its subtleties like an impressionist’s painting, opening bud by fragile bud, beginning with one of the best verses written this year: “i can pinpoint the moment, you closed your eyes / and said yes to the flooding.” It isn’t just the line itself that makes it so stunning, but how Hersh intones the first half of it as a sort of run-on sentence, before turning “said yes” into a melody that lifts and then evaporates as softly as it came. It’s a testament to sad inevitability, and the final submission to an uncontrollable force, nature itself.

Note: This review was written after listening to the demos available at Hersh’s website. “Crooked”, officially due out July 19th, began as a series of demos uploaded to her CASH Music website, for fans to download, discuss, and enjoy — paying whatever they’d like to give to help keep the music flowing. Rush out to buy the mastered record. The hardcopy comes in a book format, which will feature lyrics, artwork, essays and download keys for the music, and other online goodies like interviews, videos, commentary, etc.  – Artwork/words by David D. Robbins Jr. (Original photo by Dina Douglass)

Kristin Hersh “Crooked”