As Throwing Muses has developed, so have the band's imperatives. On the Muses' first album, Kristin Hersh and Tayna Donelly, the group's two singer-songwriters, were barely post-adolescent girls trying to command the hormonal swirl of their lives: "Fuck you, stand up!" they bark in a militant moment. On Hunkpapa, from 1989, the Muses realized that feminism can embrace women's "weaknesses," as well as be a call to action: "Fall Down!" Hersh enjoins in the title line of that album's best song. On its latest album, this New England band embraces the whole pendulum of human emotion. "Rip it up, live it down, make it big, keep it clean, shake it off," Hersh offers as litany on "Hook in Her Head," The Real Ramona's quintessential number.

Confusion has always reigned in the Muses' world, and on Ramona they have a ball with it: Produced by Dennis Herring, it's their snap-happiest album to date. The lyrics are more enigmatic than ever, and Hersh and Donelly's buzzing guitars and nasal vocals still mesh in dizzying fashion with David Narcizo's tumbling drums and the funky bass lines supplied by new member Fred Abong, but hooks peek out of the drone like bright confections.

The album's first five songs are really just ditties, Hersh's homage to Abbey Road's second side. Maybe it's light fare, but so much joy bubbles out of a song like "Golden Thing" that it doesn't matter. The Muses' songs have always had a certain inchoate quality; the inner sleeve on the band's first album jumbled together lyrics from different tracks, and on Ramona's "Honeychain," Donelly doesn't even bother to put words to the chorus. Sometimes it's best to listen to the Muses that way, as if they're just babbling brilliantly, speaking in tongues. (RS 607)

EVELYN MCDONELL