Belly

Distorto-melodic Throwing Muses featured slasher-burner Kristin Hersh doing the most throwing and stepsister Tanya Donelly doing the bulk of the musing. By 1992, Donelly had skipped out for a one-album Pixies-ish twist with Kim Deal's Breeders, then alighted again to make it big with her own Belly (with ex-Muse Fred Abong on bass, plus drummer and guitarist brothers Chris and Tom Gorman). The band's strong first EP, Slow Dust, hit #1 on the U.K. indie charts, and 1993's full-length Star debuted just as stateside aggro-grunge gloom gave way to alt's broader palette. Confident pop fables, such as the jaunty, puppeteering "Gepetto," Gypsy nightmare "Slow Dog," and radio-glistening "Feed the Tree" give witchy weirditude serious (if shoegazey) melodic muscle. The even more songful 1995 followup King (produced by rock icon maker Glyn Johns) is another ebullient charmer, its showpiece tune "Now They'll Sleep." But King's commercial nonstart ended up breaking up the band, and the quiet self-analysis of Donelly's 1997 solo debut, Lovesongs for Underdogs, is more a postcard from an old friend than a blazoned manifesto, and on 2002's Beautysleep, songs such as the ultrasound-heartbeating "Life Is But a Dream" and the Stevie Nicks–ish "Night You Saved My Life" reveal our onetime dervish in the creative thrall of motherhood. In "Night," she sings, "Now I sit with my baby at my breast/I was never this good at my best," bringing her spiritual quest to the domestic sphere. (LAURA SINAGRA)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide