Learn to Sing Like a Star is, without doubt, a Kristin Hersh record that's not entirely divorced from a Throwing Muses record (she has announced that the Muses aren't a dead concern), while also touching on 2001's Sunny Border Blue and her last solo offering, The Grotto, released in 2003. Her first solo offering in nearly four years, Learn to Sing Like a Star is nigh on worthy of rejoicing over. Hersh produced the record herself, and plays everything on it but drums -- played by bandmate David Narcizo -- with support from Martin and Kimberlee McCarrick on cello and violin, respectively. She has a bona fide single in the opening cut, In Shock. A fast waltz tempo is ushered in by drums, electric guitar, and piano and the hook opens itself because in some sense, the rhythm is the hook. The dynamic is taut, and Hersh goes right into what she does best: lays out a naked lyric that sears immediately, simply peeling the flesh back: "Pinned by a dream state/You are fearless/And your empty arms/Waiting for no one/You wanted to be wanted...." The strings enter and underscore the shuffling kick drum and snare, and Hersh's voice is already reaching for it, that place in her body where the well overflows with emotion, completely free of bullsh*t observation. Of course, it reaches the listener that way, too.

1		In Shock
2		Nerve Endings
3		Day Glow
4		Christian Hearse
5		Ice
6		Under the Gun
7		Piano 1
8		Sugarbaby
9		Peggy Lee
10		Piano 2
11		Vertigo
12		Winter
13		Wild Vanilla
14		The Thin Man