Sunday, January 23, 2011

#278 Husker Du - New Day Rising

Another AMG rec, plus I'm on something of a Minutemen kick, and those guys helped get these guys signed. I have their debut, Zen Arcade, and in theory I've heard it, but man, I've got no memory of it. So lets start/continue here.

I think I somehow got the idea that these guys were Depeche Mode-esque mopers. My appologies to Husker Du fans. Instead, its a pretty nice, fast, catchy punk album, providing raveup on the title track, GBV lo-fi hookiness on Celebrated Summer and Terms of Psychic Warfare, and plenty of Pavement-esque moments, especially the madcap schememaking on How to Skin a Cat. Those tracks are all brilliant in their ways, and the rest of the album is a lot of intense, inventive fun, with a great buzzsaw guitar sound and some excellent basslines. Some of it is a bit too repetitive, with the shoutyshoutyshouty overanoveragain of I Apologize nearly derailing my opinion of the album early on, but across the board I feel drawn to it, and will certainly revisit it. Could see it being a grower; for now 4/5

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