Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Album Review: Husker Du – Flip Your Wig

In 1985 Husker Du were on a very productive streak, and released their second album of the year with Flip Your Wig.  They had moved further away from their hardcore roots at this point.  The title track which opens the album sets the tone, it’s an almost poppy, catchy tune with Bob Mould’s rocking guitars.  It’s followed up by the breakneck stomp of Every Everything, matched for speed later by Mould’s bawling on Divide and Conquer.
They very much had their pop sensibilities to the fore.  Makes No Sense At All and Hate Paper Doll are two of Husker Du’s catchiest tracks.  When they take things down a bit, such as on Grant Hart’s Green Eyes and Mould’s Games (sounding like a future Sugar track), the band sound effortlessly rocking.
One of the standouts is Find Me, Mould’s guitars lurching backwards and forwards with some great solos.  After the pointlessly awful Baby Song interlude, the band are right back on form with Hart’s Flexible Flyer and Mould’s Private Plane.
The album tails off a little in quality towards the end with a pair of instrumentals: the fast and loose The Wit and the Wisdom and the pseudo-psychedelic Don’t Know Yet but otherwise it’s one of their finer albums.

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