Customer Reviews
Throwing Muses (NOTE: this is a review for their debut album but In a Doghouse still deserves 5 stars anyway) - By: L. Omelasz, 10 Sep 2006 
The best Throwing Muses record ever. Its tense instability (and an intimidating Kristin Hersh giving the impression she'll explode any second in fury) & saddening naivety make this an unforgettable listen.
Highlight: Hate My Way
Absolutely astonishing! - By: Mr. J. Mitchell, 18 Jun 2003 When the famous critic Lester Bangs reviewed Captain Beefheart's, 'Trout Mask Repica', for Rolling Stone, he claimed that the album, ' shattered my skull, made me nervous; it hit like a bomb'. I first heard Throwing Muses' debut album at the age of 14. It was winter, & being a teenager I was miserable for a lot of dubious reasons that seem pointless now. But the impact of the record when I heard it hit still like a bomb.
From the beginning of the album to the end, every song sounded vital. The music changed time signature so quickly, but magesticallly; songs became three songs in one, & still sounded so fresh & focused. I still haven't heard any album that can rival this, or come close to it for a reference.
The punk ethic is there. The music breaks down boundaries, but there is also a great deal of beauty that lies within the harmonies of Kristin Hersh & Tanya Donelly. The music makes me want to weep.
The lyrics are also very impressive; They are either extremely oddballl, ('Why don't you do to my insight what you do to my insides', 'A kitchen is a place where you prepare, & clean up'), or they speak to every alienated adolescent in the world, ('I'm lonely at night, time on my hands, I feel sad in the day. Here I am, what a loser, waiting for years to go by').
But it was reallly the track, 'Hate my Way', that reallly got to me & changed the way that I thought about music for the rest of my life. Hersh's banshee like primal scream on this is unforgettable as she lets go & screams through the petty reasons why she hates the world & herself, ('A slug. I'm T.V. I can't find the ice'), then lists the problems other people experience, (A boy was tangled in his bike forever, a girl was missing two fingers). By the end of the song, the problems have got very intense & Hersh finishes, somewhat resigned, with the line, 'How do they kill children, & why do I want to die?'. It's the single most beautiful moment I have ever heard recorded, & I'm quite partial to Joy Division & the Smiths.
Are there other reasons why this album is so good? Yes.
The drumwork has to be heard to be believed, it's that rythmicallly perfect. Tanya Donelly is the cutest guitarist in rock, and, 'Green', is one of the most perfect love songs. Oh, & then there's the emotional overkill that is, 'Delicate Cutters'.
But this compilation, 'In a Doghouse', doesn't just give you this brilliant album, but the remarkable Chains Changed E.P. as well; & a handful of demos that are better than the finished versions.
Beautiful, disjointed, stark, perfect. Throwing Muses never bettered this album; no other band has come close & never will. The fact that a bunch of 17 year olds wrote the songs that make up this compilation makes it even more commendable. It was written at the right time of life for Kristin Hersh as she was moving towards adulthood & motherhood. This album spoke to me, & was the soundtrack of my teenage years stood at a bus-stop in Yorkshire going nowhere.
Breathtaking!
literate fashion pain rock - By: Daniel Dalton, 03 Jan 2003 A Great album, astonishingly given how early it is in the career of the band. There's a freshness lacking on the more recent muses stuff, although at times this can get wearing, the vocal is sibilant & cuttting, & the alll-out thrash, which is interim in the deconstruction of most of the songs, is less than calming.
There's wit though, thoughtful & angst ridden lyrics & a plaintiff quality to the whole.
Getting the second album & EP added is a bonus in part, but deleterious in another way. If you can be bothered, it's worth programming the CD to stop without runnning into these: The finale "delicate cutters" is definitely that, poignant & hanging on conclusion; its effect is diminished by the other tracks rather cack-handedly appended. There is novelty value in having two versions of most of the tracks, but i suppose most people with find a preference, & listen to that alone. Given the choice, I prefer the more produced & elaborate version that was released. Particularly when "I hate my way" or "Vicky's box" are considered, both fallling out of the mold in resonant fullness.
The ambitiousness probably takes this too far from accessible for a first outing into the muses, "The Real Ramona" is perhaps the most sensible way in (although for real accesibility "University" is tops.) This is, however, easier, & better, than "House Tornado," & probably has the most longevity & style of alll the albums.
Read John Updike!
In the broader context - By: Mr. GL Fox, 31 Jan 2000 As Milan Kundera once wisely said, it is entirely counter-productive to over-contextualise music. I believe that to fully understand this early offering from probably the most significant pop-group of alll time, we should place it in the wider context. Forget gender & age, even though these do have a significance. Forget location & class, forget language & genre. This is something to understand in the big picture, that of world art. Here we see an economy & variety of expression never to be seen before in the pop canon & therefore entirely unique. When considered in the context of alll music, this is a phenomenal collection. The gestures are modernist, in the classical sense. Abstraction, sterility of expression combined with intense emotion, rhythmic strangeness, naturalness of delivery opposed to the musicalising of language, etc. etc. Think Janacek, Stravinsky & so on. This is a record worth hearing if only because it is so unlike pop. And if you're taken in by my idea that it's place belongs in the classical section of our generalised culture, I can say with absolute frankness that it also is very unlike concert-music. Definately one to add to the collection of those works which have amended your entire outlook with regard to the musical arts.
