Clear Pond Road

After cranking out blistering riffs on Possible Dust Clouds, Throwing Muses' Sun Racket, and 50 Foot Wave's Black Pearl, Kristin Hersh once again puts acoustic guitars at the forefront on Clear Pond Road. The angular chords and winding melodies on her 13th solo album may sound familiar, but they're never comfortable. In fact, there are moments on Clear Pond Road that sound as revelatory as when she first brought the friction and tension of her music into a more intimate setting on Hips and Makers. "Bewitched Reruns" is one such moment, its ringing guitar climbing hypnotic chords as Hersh's utterances ("once more with feeling," "your dust will never settle") land somewhere between comforting and threatening. While acoustic-based music isn't a gesture of authenticity for Hersh, Clear Pond Road's wide-open sound lets the grit of her songwriting stand out more than on her past few albums. With its lush instrumentation, "Valentine's Day Massacre" may be one of the prettier songs here, but its mood of heartache and deception is fleshed out with raw recriminations ("you choke on a red envelope," "I lied for you for hours"). Similarly, Hersh populates the shattered relationship of "Eyeshine" with ground glass and washed-out roads that perfectly complement its relentless strumming and thunderclap drums. Clear Pond Road's arrangements are just as creative as those on Hersh's plugged-in albums, if not more so. On songs like "Ms Haha" -- which manages to be trippy, fierce, and domestic all at once -- there's a heaviness to Hersh's playing that comes from the acoustic baritone guitar she uses for the album's rhythmic bones. These woody tones are surprisingly versatile, creating choppy rhythms that echo the cryptic wordplay on "Constance St." and lending a low-slung cool to "Thank You, Corner Blight." The field recordings woven through the album add further depth as they conjure "Palmetto"'s eerie backwoods and the feeling of disappearing into thin air on "Tunnels." It never feels like a diminishing of Hersh's artistry when she goes unplugged, but Clear Pond Road's mesmerizing sonics and songwriting make it special among her solo albums. Nearly 30 years after Hips and Makers, it offers another chance to savor the intricacies of her music as well as its power. ~ Heather Phares