Gig review: Kristin Hersh at Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds

“This song is about a goldfish called Freddie Mercury,” reveals Kristin Hersh, by way of introduction to ‘Bywater’. It’s not the most likely subject matter for a lyric, especially from someone described in the New York Times as ‘a fearless rock innovator’.

Yet the American musician has made a career out of rejecting industry norms and expectations. Whether as a solo artist, founder of alt-rock outfit Throwing Muses, or leader of power trio 50 Foot Wave she’s valued integrity over commercialism. It’s an approach that’s won her respect and a fervent fanbase, even if it hasn’t made her a star.

Her Strange Angels – the name given to her fans – are on polite form on the first of two nights at Mill Hill Chapel. Sitting in front of a giant pot plant and flickering candles, she plays two acoustic sets that span her solo career and cherry picks from Throwing Muses’ recent back catalogue.

Backed by just Pete Harvey on cello, the format recreates the pared back instrumentation on the recently released Clear Pond Road. The album has many tonal similarities to her solo debut, 1994’s Hips and Makers, especially its use of sparky guitar. But rather than going full circle, it makes the listener aware of how much has changed for the musician.

Her mature voice is deeper, more weathered than before, which lends a reflective, blues tone to ‘Dandelion’. The newer tracks feature her trademark shifts in tempo, but it’s more considered, less dramatic than in her earlier work. This doesn’t mean her sound has lost its edge; more that she’s learned how to temper its juxtaposition of light and dark.

The development is brought into sharp relief when she plays early career tracks like ‘Sundrops’ and ‘Your Ghost’. The wounded quality of her delivery contrasts with her younger version’s higher pitch, giving them a fresh emotional spin. Not that it’s easy to pinpoint meaning, her obtuse lyrics and impassive face making it hard to tell if tracks are happy or sad, slipping between extremes to capture the intensity of real life.

In the same way, her music defies easy categorisation. The acoustic instrumentation implies folk but while ‘Static’ nods to the genre, particularly Harvey’s style of playing, it’s been reinterpreted from a fierce electric studio recording. ‘Bo Diddley Bridge’ and ‘Mississippi Kite’ are likewise stripped of their thick, atmospheric blues to become melodic alt-rock.

Performing with a thousand-yard stare, she gives the impression she wishes the audience wasn’t there. Other than a polite ‘thank you’ after each track, she mostly directs her beaming smile and small talk to Harvey. This is a shame because she’s a warm host when she does remember the crowd, decoding closing track ‘Palmetto’ by revealing it’s a term used in New Orleans for cockroaches.

More of her personality and sharp eye for observations is revealed when she reads extracts from her 2021 memoir Seeing Sideways at the end of each set. Her use of southern US dialect drips with the swamps of New Orleans when she describes a ghost house, or the strangeness of honeymooning in Texas when everyone looks like Elvis, even the dogs.

These self-same stories and characters inhabit her songs. They may be unlikely subject matters, but they’re almost always shot through with the beauty of life. As she sings on ‘Palmetto’, and which sums up the emotional journey of her sets, there’s “no winter without spring”.