Bob Mould - District Line
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Free Music Notes for District Line
Free Music Review: Great
Hit: 5 Stars
A great return to form for Mr. Mould - every bit as good as his finest work, from Workbook to Sugar.Free Music Review: New Day Rising
Hit: 3 Stars
A happier Bob Mould? He sure sounds comfortable in his current groove. Whereas his solo career has previously been marked by blatant pendulum swings between two polar opposites---indie rock and heavily-vocoded dance electronica---lately Mould has struck a cozy balance between the two. Modulate era fans will lap up "Shelter Me" while the traditionalists rally behind "Stupid Now," the hardest rocking tune on District Line outside of the blistering guitar and pond-skipping blip-blop synth duet of "The Silence Between Us." A (slightly overlong at over six minutes) acoustical outtake from Mould's Workbook closes the disc.
Even "Shelter Me" is accessible to those with an open mind. Dizzying, shimmery pad swells and android drumming sweep Mould's vocals along; any frugal plucks of guitar serve only as subtle accentuation, but the track is still far more organic, open and free-flowing than other dance club hitmongers like, say, Fatboy Slim or The Prodigy, summing up in a single track the direction which Mould seems intent upon steering his musical output.
While groovy all the same, the more "rock" moments on District Line tend toward an easy-going, midtempo head-bob the likes of "Very Temporary" and its simple vocal hook. Paired with some debatably awful lyricism for a musician of his history ("Just to please you, I'd blow my brains out, this is it/ Cut my heart out with a razor now"), it's easy to say that Mould is coasting on the waves he used to make. Given the wide appeal and success of H?sker D?, a band Mould consistently derides as contributing to some of the worst times of his life, it's also easy to see why. Still, "midtempo" is a word that never should have to be used to describe the musical output of someone who played guitar for the H?skers.
District Line is a slam dunk in at least one sense: front to back, it's a great pop album which openly wields production and electronic garnish as worthwhile techniques, without allowing complete obliteration of the rock analog underneath. The edge and breakneck pace of H?sker D? have dulled and slowed, but Mould certainly isn't capable of writing a terrible song. He's just happier and easier-going now, and that's not necessarily a great thing if your fans happen to be agitated punks who still crave Sugar. Punks who can put down all expectations will grow comfortably old with Bob.
Free Music Review: In Bob We Trust
Hit: 5 Stars
I've been a Mould fan since his days in Husker Du. I followed him through his post-Husker solo career, his days with Sugar (still the loudest rock concert I've ever seen), and his forays into electronica. Now, however, Bob has gotten back to basics -- and I couldn't be happier with the results. "District Line" is full of that hook-filled, driving rock music that Bob fans know and love. Songs like "Stupid Now" and "The Silence Between Us" will delight old fans, and, I hope, attract a new following for this musician who may be in his mid-40s, but still sounds fresher than most artists half his age.Free Music Review: Every artist's right: to try something new and to fail at it
Hit: 4 Stars
After regrettably resigning myself to the thought "Bob Mould now sucks" (after Body Of Song and Modulate), all I can really write intelligibly about this album is "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
District Line heralds the return of Mould's glistening 12-string acoustic as much as it finally pays off on his promise to start rocking again. More than that, though, it reasserts his ability to make a total album instead of an inconsistent batch of songs bound together by being housed in the same jewel case.
I am not one of the electronica-haters that demands that Mould return to the Black Sheets Of Rain days. In fact, District Line incorporates quite a bit of electronic sounds. The difference is the songs. Where the previous two albums tried to force-fit his songwriting style onto his nascent flounderings with electronic textures, District Line finally integrates them. The songs are better, the production is better, and the album is better. In fact it is pretty damn wonderful.
There is a John Doe-like maturity to this new batch of songs. One would have to be a complete moron to accuse Bob Mould of not being a mature songwriter -- however, that said, the last two albums represent the songwriting doldrums of a long and accomplished career.
On District Line, Mould exudes confidence from the ground up. The songs, although occasionally overwrought ("Again And Again" could probably shed a verse or two and at least a pound of earnestness), sound fully realized and come replete with memorable hooks -- and not memorable because they're bad (ahem, Modulate, cough cough).
He's even canny enough to bury a snub in "The Silence Between Us" -- and it is a snub directed at us finicky listeners as much as at critics ready to hairshirt Mould for daring to veer from his punk roots. There it is: about three seconds of wiggly electronic sounds buried in the middle of an otherwise rootsy, old school Bob Mould delivery, existing merely to thumb his nose at those who denied him the right to experiment and fail at it. Every artist's right.
Free Music Review: Bob Mould - District Line
Hit: 5 Stars
Proof that some things not only age gracefully, but actually improve over time, "District Line" by Bob Mould is probably the most accessible CD he's ever released. Having said that, nothing he's done on this release will alienate his most devoted audience, because the quality of the songs on "District Line" is so good.
Mould has certainly straddled the line between mainstream and eclectic in the past - mostly leaning towards the eclectic side. First, with Husker Du in the 80's, then with Sugar in the 90's, his audience has always been formed of mostly college radio listeners. But with "Body Of Song" in 2005 he seemed to find a groove for himself that would resonate with a much larger audience - and "District Line" should further that trend.
From the first track "Stupid Now" Mould embarks on a very personal sounding lyrical journey, backed up by a blistering musical landscape that includes some of the strongest hooks he's ever embedded in song.