Husker Du- "Everything Falls Apart"

Husker Du
"Everything Falls Apart"
Reflex Records
1983

Following "Land Speed Record," the Husker's put out "Everything Falls Apart," quite a punk sounding title if ya' ask me. Ironically, things seemed to be coming together for them on this album. YOUCH, that's cornier than a can of Green Giant.

No, really. "Everything Falls Apart" is the perfect metamorphosis record. A "where we're going, and we're we've been” of sorts, without sounding awkward or discombobulated. Opening with a militant drumbeat, crashing down with Bob Mould's perfunctory guitar jabs, “From the Gut” walks a fine line of contrived attitude versus AWESOME FUCKING SONG. Following the initial stomp of the verse, the song expands into a section of airy, major chord strums intertwined with a melodic bass line? What the fuck punks? Basically, this is a side of Husker Du not found on “Land Speed Record,” but one that would become more prevalent over time. Leaving the endless jackhammer of their debut live LP behind, "Everything Falls Apart" is more an erratic jackhammer. This album ebbs and flows, jitters and jolts through hardcore blasts and some down right pop-punk moments from second song on.

"Blah Blah Blah" opens with a Greg Norton bass-riff that sounds like something a high-school kid would fiddle with, trying to emulate the intro to a Lifetime song. However, here it is fresh and starts the song off on a raged bounce, before diving into a speedy-fist waving chorus of profound statements, "BLAH BLAH BLAH."

Songs like "Target" and Grant Hart's "Wheels" (a great song for all you Manson family fans, nonetheless), show reserved angst without the hardcore daredevilry found on "Punch Drunk" and "Obnoxious." A proper recording of “Bricklayer” fucking rules here too. And to round things out, Husker Du through a wrench in the mix and drop a Donovan cover of “Sunshine Superman” smack dab in the middle of this sucker, and not a hardcore infused cover either.

This is Husker Du's acne scars album, a collection of songs that both find them equally embracing and abandoning their hardcore beginning. They seem hellbent on growing up, but still struggling to weed out the growing pains. Shit, the title track alone holds up to their best melodic mid-80s moments. Mould could have easily used a title like "Everything Falls Apart" to scare the shit out of your mother as you boot-stomped on her antique coffee table. But we're introduced to our first true Mouldian moment, confusion and angst at a fast tempo, not breakneck speeds; confessional, high-voltage bedroom rock. The beginning of the mid-west invasion.

7/10