Bob Mould is an elder statesman of US punk and alt-rock. He was in Hüsker Dü, the Minnesota trio that married noise and melodicism in the 1980s. Among their followers were Nirvana, another trio with an ear for loudness and melody. Indeed, Dave Grohl’s post-Nirvana group Foo Fighters were moulded from the sound of Mould. For Grohl, the former Hüsker Dü frontman “should be placed in the highest ranks of America’s greatest songwriters and lyricists.”
Here We Go Crazy is his 15th solo album. Its predecessor Blue Hearts came out in 2020 near the end of Donald Trump’s first presidency. The songs were raw-skinned polemics about the state of the nation. “This American crisis keeps me wide-awake at night,” Mould cried at one point, words tumbling inside a furious torrent of guitar, bass and drums. Written during a “three-day sleepless stretch”, in Mould’s words, the album had the impatient feel of cages being rattled and floors paced.
His new songs arrive at the start of Trump’s second term. They are also full of energy. But this time Mould portrays himself as overwhelmed by events. In “Breathing Room”, he sings about trying to find respite for his “troubled mind”. “Lost or Stolen” finds him struggling with “paranoid and schizoid thoughts”. “Storm is coming closer, is it time to head for shelter?” he wonders in “Thread So Thin”.
These battered sentiments are phrased in a voice that has hardly altered over the decades. At 64, Mould still resembles his younger self, open and committed. Meanwhile, the music surges by in the brightly blaring style of his post-Hüsker Dü group, Sugar. Honed while touring, it aims for directness and simplicity. Drummer Jon Wurster strongarms his kit amid tunefully shaped walls of noise from Mould’s guitar. Bassist Jason Narducy provides the underpinning.
In keeping with its theme of refuge, Here We Go Crazy finds comfort in the familiar contours of Mould’s sound. It is heartening to encounter him in full flow, hollering at the head of his power trio, even if the results lack the electric charge of Blue Hearts.
★★★☆☆
‘Here We Go Crazy’ is released by Granary Music/BMG