Ltd CLEAR Vinyl, DL card. Standard CD Digisleeve. Kristin Hershs new album is a cinematic road trip a series of personal vignettes from a fiercely independent auteur, sitting plush with layers of all-consuming strings and mellotron. Its a watershed moment in a career overflowing with creative firsts and inspirational thinking an elegant piece of personal reportage, a home movie caught in time. Previously, the juxtaposition of light and dark has been essential to the drama of Throwing Muses and 50FOOTWAVE, but this solo set is something of a departure more inward looking, quieter but outspoken, underpinned by background noise for ambience and awkwardness. Passion sounds less angry, more grateful, I think, Kristin muses, sweeter, sadder. And somehow, no less alive over car engines and rain in New England and whistling ducks and wind chimes in New Orleans, it all sounds wistful to me. Clear Pond Road is a life-affirming statement, a further part of the jigsaw, a very personal memoir, from street signs to snapshots a late blossoming and coming-of-age from a true icon of independence. The record is both intimate yet expansive, written largely within the confines of Hershs home, making the proceedings ever more personal. // Few artists understand the intensity of living ones art like Hersh The Guardian // A fearless rock innovator New York Times //
