POP MUSIC REVIEW : Distress Call From the Muses

As if to point out that dark and heavy didn’t begin with the currently hot Seattle rock sound, Rhode Island’s Throwing Muses--which has been making records since 1986, and getting brawnier as it goes along--opened its show at Bogart’s on Tuesday with a crunching instrumental tromp through Jimi Hendrix’s “Manic Depression.”

The song introduced a heavy-hitting rhythm concept that made drummer David Narcizo the instrumental focus of the band’s new three-member lineup. “Manic Depression” also sounded a thematic keynote: For the ensuing hour, leader Kristin Hersh sang fragmented songs about the emotional fragging that goes on when relationships turn raw.

Hersh’s oblique lyrics hinted at rejections, humiliations and retaliations, and her performance projected these often puzzling shards onto a big screen where the underlying feelings were unmistakable.

Even at her calmest and most moderate, Hersh’s voice was fraught with tension, incipient alarm, or a nervous weariness. In gripping moments when the heat of feeling turned explosive, her gargling, keening and yelping registered palpable distress, verging on madness. The drama was all in her voice; clearly engaged, but nearly immobile, Hersh never tried to milk a glamorous payback from the pain she sang about.