Album Review: Husker Du - Everything Falls Apart

Husker Du's first studio album, 1983's Everything Falls Apart, followed a similar template to their debut, albeit these songs have actually been produced.  We still get the 30 second thrashes of Punch Drunk and Bricklayer, but we also get Bob Mould's From The Gut and the title track, which pre-empt Mudhoney's sound by a couple of years and a nice cover of Donovan's Sunshine Superman.  It finishes with the epic, lengthy, two and a half minute Gravity.

Album Review: Husker Du – Land Speed Record

Words sure to strike fear into my reviewing heart: seminal, influential.  These words have always been used to describe Husker Du.  Their debut album saw Bob Mould, Grant Hart and Greg Norton release what was basically a live album in 1982.  It’s not particularly well recorded and most of the songs run into each other.  Opening track All Tensed Up sets the tone, breakneck tempos, shouted vocals (by Mould) and thrashing guitars.  The songs are very brief and most run into each other.  The album has 17 tracks and only lasts 26 minutes!

Standout tracks are pretty difficult to find here.  Norton’s MTC starts out a little like Velvet Underground’s I Heard Her Call My Name, ie all over the place, Mould’s Bricklayer is completely manic and over in 53 seconds.  Final track Data Control stands out due to its length, at nearly five and a half minutes it’s by far the longest song here, not a million miles away from a particularly messy Neil Young track.

It’s difficult to recommend this album unless you want to see where Husker Du started out from.