A Bright ‘Star’ Shoots Out of the Shadows : Formerly with Throwing Muses, Tanya Donelly is now leading her own band, Belly, to the top of the alternative charts with its debut album of music she calls ‘creepy pop.’

After almost eight years as junior partner in two other acclaimed rock bands, Tanya Donelly is leading her own group and doing just fine, thanks.

In fact, the debut album by her new band, Belly, has been at or near the top of the alternative/college rock radio charts ever since its release early this year, thanks largely to its irresistible “Feed the Tree” track.

The album, “Star,” blends Donelly’s pure, Emmylou Harris-like harmonies with dreamy, Cocteau Twins textures in a series of deeply personal songs, many of which deal with encountering and combatting youthful disillusionment. The album’s music is a blend of chilling, sheer ballads and thick, twisted, folk/pop melodies.

Part of the album’s lure is the way Donelly disarms you with the beauty of her voice and then unnerves you with a sometimes wicked edge--something akin to a character in a play who is smiling sweetly while poisoning the punch.

Donelly, a 26-year-old native of Newport, R.I., works hard at trying to inject this duality into her music and is sometimes frustrated when male critics overlook her vocal diversity and describe her singing as simply sweet and sexy.

“My voice doesn’t turn me on,” she says with a laugh. “There’s something sexual because, well, everybody’s sexual, but I don’t try to sound sexy. That’s just the nature of my voice. The only (thing that) bothers me is when writers say, ‘She sounds like a very sexy little girl.’ It’s pretty insulting, not to mention twisted.”

Inspired by a wide array of strongly emotional performers ranging from Neil Young and Gram Parsons to Billie Holiday, Donelly joined her stepsister, Kristin Hersh, in the eccentric art-rock band Throwing Muses in the mid-’80s. She contributed an occasional song to the band’s albums, but mainly remained in the shadows, playing guitar and singing backup vocals.

Donelly touches on her departure from Throwing Muses in “Untogether,” a song on the new album--and the lyrics aren’t exactly amicable. Yet she downplays any friction.

“I left mainly because there wasn’t any space in the band for me to become even a half-time songwriter,” says Donelly, whose new band will headline the Whisky on Thursday, the Roxy on Friday and the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on April 19. “Kristin is extremely prolific, and the formula was such that the albums were hers, so I really didn’t even presume to disrupt that. I left before it became an issue.”

Donelly--who has also made two albums with the Breeders, the band started by former Pixies bassist Kim Deal--describes her music as “creepy pop.”

Like Grimm’s fairy tales, the lyrics--about such unlikely subjects as Pinocchio’s maker Gepetto and being shipwrecked with frogs--are jumbles of pure fantasy and heartbreaking reality that paint detailed and emotional scenarios.

“I admire fairy tales as a source of information, ethics and strangeness,” says Donelly, who teams in Belly with bassist Gail Greenwood and brothers Chris and Tom Gorman on guitar and drums. “I like that context and form--really short with tons of imagery and a story underneath the story.”

Donelly’s refreshingly goofy demeanor--and her group name, Belly, in fact--is far from college-radio cool. She chuckles knowingly when asked about reactions to the name.

“All my male friends were like, ‘Eww, that’s kind of gross.’ All the woman were like, ‘Oh, that’s so sweet. I love my belly,’ ” she says with a laugh that bursts out like a disruptive giggle from the back of a quiet classroom.

“I think guys (often think) things like ‘belly up’ or ‘fish bellies’ or guts and stuff when they hear the name. But there’s a lot more important stuff in women’s bellies, so we have a lot more affection for ours.”