Great artists never truly disappear. Sure, they might mellow with age, or their public appearances might become a little more sporadic. They might even evolve into something unrecognisable. But the urge to create never diminishes, and Throwing Muses’ thirty-year career illustrates this perfectly.

Of course, sometimes even the greats need to stop and reassess their work, and with the recently-released ‘Anthology’ providing the impetus for this latest UK jaunt, we get a set full of old favourites. Call it nostalgia if you must, but with a new album on the way, it’s really more of a mile marker. In any case, the likes of ‘Fish’ and ‘Start’ deserve celebration in one way or another.

It helps that both band and crowd are in such good spirits. Kristin Hersh is modesty personified, her one-inch-punch of a voice doing some serious damage atop that magnificently idiosyncratic guitar work. It’s also an unbridled joy to watch David Narcizo disappear into a blur of syncopated beats and eye-boggling fills, while Bernard Georges nods in time, smiles and casually demonstrates his mastery of bass, space and how to use ‘em. Their chemistry is simply astonishing, and it feeds the already-glowing mood.

You wouldn’t normally associate Throwing Muses with feeling good, of course – even when the veiled images that make up Kristin’s lyrics are more immediately comprehensible, there’s still an awkwardness to the music that doesn’t exactly translate to ‘party anthems’. But that’s precisely what’s so fucking awesome about this band; the endless sense of uncertainty making them an impossible mystery that demands to be unravelled. That’s proven when the atmosphere explodes into euphoria, as Kristin hollers the line “I shimmer on horizons” like a rainbow bursting through the clouds.

“I think I need a little poison,” goes ‘Bright Yellow Gun’. We’ll have whatever they’re having.

Will Fitzpatrick