My Big, Gigantic Drum Kit

therichgirlsareweeping:

bg5000:

New Bob Mould!

Bob Mould — The Descent

There’s not much better in this world than a big, bombastic new song from Bob Mould, all power chords and phased vocals and crisp, sugarcoated wonderfulness.

“Sugarcoated” is right! I haven’t loved a Mould release since The Last Dog & Pony Show, but I’ve always wondered what a full album of Bob in Sugar mode would have sounded like with a looser rhythm section, and it sounds like Silver Age might be just that. 

Which is not to knock the Barbe/Travis piledriver approach. At the time, it sounded massive in contrast to that Hüsker fleet-footedness and the detail-oriented professionalism of the Maimone/Fier backing on the first Mould solo albums. But, aside from some funky bits on Beaster and a few b-sides, they drove those steady 8th notes and 16th note fill patterns into the ground. As much as I liked Sugar, I was sort of glad when they split up, so Mould could get back to making music that wasn’t so damn rigid (which has really only turned out to be the case on The Last Dog & Pony Show and sporadically after the mess that was Modulate).