Mould is Mould

Mould's a sensitive guy and it's not his fault that he came to fame fronting a powerhouse barrage band (Hüsker Dü). But people get sore at you when you don't stay in the same place, and Mould has gotten sore back. Hence, "I Hate Alternative Rock," which displays a measured megalomania ("The Twentieth Century/Has not been particularly kind to me" -- that "particularly" is wonderful) while remaining the perfect model of an alterna-song: loud, brief, and covered with a layer of irony you could chip a tooth on. Mould's still trying to shed the old savage image, divorce himself from the Hüsker cult, fighting the band who bleed him (as it were). It's not that he's bitter; it's just that he wants to not be disliked . . . is that so wrong?

So now he's no longer at, or probably anywhere near, the vital center of scorched-earth angst, so get over it. He's become an able chronicler of his own self-disgust and keen disappointments -- and if the music's starting to sound a little generic, well he's getting older, too. I'm taking this negative approach to saying the album is pretty good because I don't quite believe it. I enjoy it when I'm listening to it, but it leaves no aftertaste, good or bad. When you look closely at the lyric sheet, the ratio of plain assertion ("I'm so tired of trying to explain/I'm so bored I can hardly stand the strain," from "Art Crisis") to interesting turns of phrase ("When your mind begins to reconstruct/The sadness into laughter," from "Deep Karma Canyon") seems about right, even smart. And at one point the two modes meet, memorably: "Monkeys made of grass/Fly out of your ass," again from "Art Crisis." Still, I've never found Mould's earnest delineations of various levels of depression very compelling. Maybe that's what I don't believe: that he's as serious as he seems. Always, as with all of the post-Hüsker stuff, there's this unsavory undertone of being contentedly unhappy. Or perhaps it's just the subject -- his fairly forlorn self -- with which he's most comfortable.

Which is why I like the music, unremarkable as it is. Its counterweight gives Mould's dour pensées more ambiguity than a lyric sheet can convey -- ensconced on their comfy cushions, these laments and bitches seem not necessarily a bad way to go. There are also more musical references here than one remembers from previous works, which adds an element of something like fun. "Fort Knox, King Solomon," for instance, sounds like a Neil Young song. "Hair Stew" has that Sonic Youth obsessive (heck, psychotic) guitar plucking, though he doesn't go quite as far as the Sonics' chaotic density (probably because he isn't a band). "Deep Karma Canyon" could be an XTC song, arch and basically pop as it is.

There are two songs here, though, that strike me as wholly Mouldian. "Thumbtack," which sounds like folk music (mostly acoustic guitar), is built on the kind of extended and fragile metaphor that dies an ugly death if it isn't handled gingerly. Mould, the natural poker face, pulls it off. Then there's "Egøverride," full-tilt rock and roll (not post-punk), where he admits "this genius/This is genuine/This is bullshit" while bopping along almost blithely. It ain't much, but in the context of Mould's oeuvre, such upbeat self-effacement sounds like a breakthrough.

That's all the faint praise I can muster (and having used the word "oeuvre," I'd better go lie down). All I really wanted to say is that what I like about this album is what any Mould fan worth his salty tears will dislike -- that he's taken his curmudgeonly world view and wedded it to some straight-ahead, heard-it-before music. A pleasurable 40 minutes gone by, the two cancel each other out, and then the CD evaporates. Which is okay, really, because one always has time for music that doesn't stick.