‘Black Pearl’ is the new (2022) album from 50 Foot Wave: Kristin Hersh’s ‘other’ band - active since 2003, with fellow Throwing Muses’ member Bernard Georges on bass and drummer Rob Ahlers. A sonic trip from the heavy, echoey riff of ‘Staring Into The Sun’ with all of its grunge melancholy and dronecore menace to the perfectly baroque ‘Hog Child’ with its spidery guitar that dissolves into motorik bass and drums. Hailed in various quarters as “an outlet for the material deemed too weird or wild for Throwing Muses”, their “menacing, stalking, spirals of lean, hungry riffs, set alight” as “feedback rips into the fragile melody.” 50 Foot Wave continue to traverse the rigid tension of their own sound. They remain detuned and discordant at will.

50 Foot Wave features Kristin Hersh and Bernard Georges of Throwing Muses and Rob Ahler on the drums. In this band, the material is heavier on the drones, grunge and distortion than Throwing Muses’ music, and perhaps a little more experimental too. If you’re a 50 Foot Wave fan, don’t miss this and the two releases coming out on Record Store Day on April 23rd.

FFO: Throwing Muses, Soundgarden, Deftones, Helium.

By Martha