''The Grotto'' is the sixth solo album released by

Kristin Hersh Martha Kristin Hersh (born August 7, 1966) is an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter known for her solo work and with her rock bands Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave, 50FootWave. She has released eleven solo albums. Her guitar work and comp ...

. It was released on 17 March 2003 on

4AD 4AD is a British record label owned by Beggars Group. It was founded in London under the name Axis Records by Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent in 1980 as an imprint of Beggars Banquet Records. The name was changed to 4AD after the release of th ...

records, simultaneously with the self-titled album from Hersh's band,

Throwing Muses Throwing Muses are an American alternative rock band formed in 1981 in Newport, Rhode Island, United States, that toured and recorded extensively until 1997, when its members began concentrating more on other projects. The group was original ...

. It features

Howe Gelb Howard “Howe” Gelb (born October 22, 1956, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and record producer based in Tucson, Arizona. Projects Gelb's approach to music is collaborative and he has recorded wit ...

on piano and

Andrew Bird Andrew Wegman Bird (born July 11, 1973) is an American indie rock multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. Since 1996, he has released 16 studio albums, as well as several live albums and EPs, spanning various genres including swing musi ...

on violin.

produced the album as well as playing all other instruments. The album peaked at #39 on the US's Billboard Top Independent Albums Chart.

Critical reception

''The Grotto'' was met with "generally favorable" reviews from critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

score of 75, based on 14 reviews. Aggregator Album of the Year gave the release a 74 out of 100 based on a critical consensus of 5 reviews.

Track listing

References

External links

The Grotto at 4AD

The Grotto at the official online store

Three free songs at the artists site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grotto, The 2003 albums Kristin Hersh albums Sire Records albums 4AD albums