Album Review: Bob Mould - 'Here We Go Crazy'
Bob Mould will not have been stuck for grist for his thematic mill whilst preparing Here We Go Crazy, his 15th solo album. In a moment which feels like a worryingly large step towards Orwell’s prophesied “boot stamping on a human face – forever”, when facts become subjective and once-trustworthy points of reference are being uprooted faster than Amazonian old growth, that which we glibly term ‘protest music’ is more important than ever.
It would not surprise me if Mould disapproved of that term, reducing his music to one facet of its actual whole, when in both sound and theme he has forged a path as an experimenter par excellence. But he has cemented himself as one of the most eloquent alumnus of the 80s US hardcore punk scene, with a knack for capturing the interplay of the personal and the political in his lyrics; creating songs which sound universal when relating to personal experience, and which avoid sounding didactic even when railing against homophobia, government-level climate change denial or the more insidious facets of our technologically dependent age. With this latest release he reminds us that he is adept at crafting songs drawn from experience which encompass thematic multitudes.
He is someone who continues to challenge himself musically, and while each new release contains echoes of Mould’s past – the crystal meth-in-the-coffee-fuelled furiosity of Hüsker Dü, the plaintive ruminations of his first solo release Workbook, the melodic intricacies of Sugar – he is still searching the horizon for new territories to explore. Whilst previous release Blue Hearts drew on the spiky, angry maelstrom patented by Hüsker Dü, his latest release is closer in spirit to 2018’s Sunshine Rock. That isn’t to accuse him of rehashing previous themes and sounds, more that they become building blocks to this current moment in his career. “On the surface, this is a group of straightforward guitar pop songs,” he demures in the press release. His goal is to eschew musical complication in aid of giving space to the album’s themes, its rallying cry against the temptation to give in to despair when faced with the seeming entropy of society. Here We Go Crazy is nominally divided into three acts, with the aforementioned title track opening the first. A stomping opener with an anthemic chorus, Mould’s voice soars over Jon Wurster’s drums and Jason Narducy’s bass like a seabird above storm-tossed seas. It is with a pleasing serendipity that I am reminded of the 90s alt rock bands on whom Hüsker Dü were such a major influence. ‘Neanderthal’, charting the course of an unsettled childhood with the ever-present threat of violence, is correspondingly faster and heavier than the opener and leads into the panic of ‘Breathing Room’. Various influences are caught for a second in the maelstrom, before subsuming to Mould’s vision. ‘Hard To Get’, with a guitar riff that channels Leatherface’s much-missed Dickie Hammond, is destined to have fans chanting along when performed live; as is ‘When Your Heart is Broken’. The latter is another reminder of the cyclical nature of music, with a hypnotic guitar refrain that would not sound out of place in a 90s teen movie soundtracked by the kind of college rock bands who looked to Mould for inspiration.
‘Fur Mink Augurs’ brings to mind Keith Morris’ OFF played at half speed; which sounds like I’m damning with faint praise but I do in fact mean in a complimentary fashion, and which acts as a nod, perhaps, to Mould’s hardcore punk roots. The song aims to capture the cabin fever-ish depths of a North American winter, that buzzing off kilter energy which so informed Hüsker Dü’s paranoid ferocity. It is also the night out before the hangover of ‘Lost Or Stolen’, a darkly emotive exploration of addiction delivered acoustic, unadorned. It is redolent of foggy guilt, thick tongues, the world in front of you fractalizing as the body attempts to rehydrate the brain and synapses drag themselves from the chemical soup in which it has been marinating. ‘Sharp Little Pieces’ is a mid-paced reflection on the loss of childhood innocence, which comes to an abrupt close before ‘You Need To Shine’ opens the album’s rallying final chapter. An impassioned rally to find the good in a bad situation, in the context of the preceding songs it could come across as personal, but rarely has a song sounded so pertinent to world events. And, in fact, ‘Thread So Thin’ and the ruminative ‘Your Side’ are about facing a sometimes cruel-seeming world with the person you love; the latter building from a whisper to a roar, bringing the album to a close in a manner which succinctly connects Mould’s musical influences and, crucially, offers a glimmer of hope in a darkening world.
Words by Jono Coote
