Husker Du
New Day Rising
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Husker Du
New Day Rising
SST, 1985
RiYL: Sugar, Black Flag, Buzzcocks, Replacements |
New Day Rising is not a concept album like its predecessor, but it does offer new avenues out of the conceptual dead ends that Zen Arcade presented. (Slightly) clearer production allows Bob Mould to continue playing in his accustomed suffocating style while Greg Norton and Hart are at least audible. The repetition of the album's title on its first track serves to announce that Zen Arcade is the past, the character who left home on "Chartered Trips" has grown up, and our hero, and the band, have bigger fish to fry.
Hart's songs lead the charge towards a wider sound. "Books About UFOs" impressively melds saloon-style piano pounding to Mould's unrestrained guitar. "The Girl Who Live On Heaven Hill" blends Hart's tuneful vocals with Norton's high-end, melodic bassline, greatly indebted to the style of Minuteman Mike Watt. The great "Terms Of Psychic Warfare," in particular, is carried by a powerful bass figure that Peter Hook would be proud of. Mould, on the other hand, seems to be slightly impatient with his bandmate's pop leanings -- listen to his falsetto "yeah, yeah, yeah" right before his guitar solo. Mould's own songs continue to be largely hardcore blows to the head, like "I Don't Know What You're Talking About" or "59 Times The Pain." The power-pop "I Apologize," however, points the way to Sugar, and the acoustic coda to "Celebrate Summer" maps out his solo records. The album kind of dribbles to a close with the annoyingly experimental "How To Skin A Cat" and two Mould songs which fail to expand upon the precedents set earlier.
Neither New Day Rising or Zen Arcade is a complete album by itself; the two complete each other like yin and yang. Mould's fury on Arcade is balanced by his resignation on New Day while Hart's detail of the world's horrors on the double album are put into context by his romantic optimism on its sequel. Husker Du made one more album for SST, Flip Your Wig, before signing to a major at exactly the moment their habit of releasing an album every nine months caught up to them. Candy Apple Grey wasn't much to write home about, and Warehouse: Songs And Stories ended their career with one of the least justified double albums of all time (rivaled only by Nelly's recent release, I would venture).
In a way, these guys still need each other, Mould with his singular vision and Hart with his ear for a hook. Grant Hart never would have let Mould put out an awful electronic album as he did solo a few years back. Mould wouldn't have let Hart's poppiness devolve into pandering, as any song his guitar graces is going to have an undeniable spark in it. I'll leave it to others to draw the Lennon/McCartney comparison. Suffice it to say that for a brief period in the mid-'80s there was no greater rock force in American than Husker Du. Their name means Do You Remember? Let them not be forgotten.
MARK T.R. DONOHUE | Mark T.R. Donohue is a prolific freelance writer whose areas of expertise include Rockies baseball, video games, genre television, English soccer, and pub rock. He lives in Colorado, where he cultivates the largest and creepiest private collection of Alyson Hannigan memorabilia in the Mountain West.