City Pages from Minneapolis, Minnesota • 24

i 3-Vv -i v' riU ia 4 JLL i jwiW a tfltod LrfvV v'-fVr 24 9590 cljr Pat 1 -v rv v'H 'list- I Jt -'v u-ipilr-? r- t'-1 'i- p-T 1 1 1 'v- 1 1 -1 ii? i 'I 1 1 W-l i i 1 Soul Asylum And The Hone They Rode In On bemoans thie disinformation age: problems should be too few to mention but they're nof) In between are a bunch of micro vignettes that trace the frailty of friendship like Three" (a vvorth means slogging through a whole lot of unwieldy screeds about pollution death and break-ups all of which are treated with the same overwhelming gravity Fortunately Mould and co-conspirators Anton Fier and Ibny Maimone (also the drummer and bassist respectively on Workbook) whip up one mean maeterom of sound redeeming a lot of the lyrical awkwardness From the burst of feedback that kicks off the title trade Mould constnicts a gale force of electric sound that acts as a cushion for the rhythm section to float along on making the sound hard and soft at once This is a hard rock record but nothing like the kind Husker Du so routinely generated This is noise from the soul as well as from a stack of ampsandtheconstant jousting between 1 intellect and his viscera makes for a disc never less than interesting In that light the final cut There Be is its most after several minutes of of Randy Newman) and whici poses the question do you turn to when the ones you always turned to go and turn on your For all its good intentions though Horse falls short on execution Steve unobtrusive production allows the band do what it does iock like hell and a-Httle-toodean singingis his most ambitious to date (witness the falsetto on and But nowhere on Soul Asylum sides 13 and 14 is there the centerpiece song that made Hang Time as much a morning ritual as coffee and Super Sugar Crisp The killer crunch the wry country bop of New and the poignant pop of Danny lone TVaviels" come dose but as a whole Horse feels strangely stagnant Which might be splitting hairs Because when judged against most of the nags who call themselves rock bands these days this Horse is still way out in front But when judged against past Soul Asylum work and the steer raw power capable of it lacks gallon -Jim Walsh captivated by the gentle painfully intimate portraits that populated last Workbook will this year be forced to feel their way through layer upon layer of dense electric sound to get at the emotional center At the same time aging Husker holdovers might lament continuing shift away from the witty abstract lyrical style of old into a far more singer- songwriterly vein Then again if there's room for both Moulds in your brain you're in for a treat If Workbook had a major flaw it was that Mould's emotional purging came at the expense of the record's musical guts OnBlackSheets Mould has refined his lyrical attack so that the songs still have the mechanics of introspection but without the nakedness that made Workbook almost embarrassing at times This time out though Mould has dispensed with the niceties and brought out the artillery that made him an ear for compelling sometimes unforgettable melodies and a guitar technique that's capable of stripping paint off a wall Conventional pop hooks crop up only when they're needed as on the natural first single Ibo which roars along on a mix-n-match melody that recalls both Dylan's I Really Want to Do" and the Move's "Do Ya" (trust me it works) And for the punk at heart sounds for all the world like a Warehouse outtake albeit one that happened to be recorded at the Power Station All good things these But this doesn't mean Black Sheets have its no record Mould has ever been involved with however redeemable otherwise has been without a major flaw Mould has a facility for evocative compact lyric couplets but an album's aye Rrner sings about friendship the way most boys talk about reluctantly stammering open-wound vulnerable and in his case bunkered safely behind walls of volume If he had his druthers Pimer'd be just one of the guys but his profession has thrust him into the discomfiting position of rock star (if you must) a voice of a generation on a rickety pedestal who'd like to believe we're all in the same gang That internal conflict has produced some of Soul Asylum's most penetrating most notably In The Of Ail and Tb from their magnificent Hang Time LP of 1988 Likewise Horse is a clammy uneasy arm around the shoulder an attempt by both band and listener to get a handle on their collective and individual places in this fast fragmenting world And while nothing here has the bite or all-out abandon of the great leap forward that was Hang Time (indeed there's some bona fide Bitter Pill" and "Veil Of feel more commissioned than inspired) maybe something to what that closet rocker Gandhi said about there being to life than increasing its Calling Horse a concept album would be stretching it but that common thread that celebration of community Pirner has been trying to get at for the last couple records is pervasive The macro picture is represented in bookend the opening track (as in headthe world keeps on and the closer "All The (in which the singer heavy-handed)hilosophical platitudes Mould concludes with a shattering unnerving scream If already used to letting the good from Mould redeem the bad Black Sheets will be worth your while Dan Heilman Bob Mould Black Sheets of Rain (Virgin) IV' 1- tv Wv I i- v' 5 A VMki -I -IVjp Tr7hether or not you can get behind Bob Mould's second solo album depends on just which Bob Mould you're particularly fond of New fans who were fiwA IV iiCDS Ml I I I I on WAIT-TURN THIS ISSUE OVER AND READ THE MISSISSIPPI BLUES A non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion and preservation of Blues music! 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