Word: punk
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...some of the hardest, most uncompromising music in the current rock scene should also be one of the most conservative. Like its fellow hardcore bands--Black Flag and Minor Threat--Husker Du, on its new EP, Metal Circus, adopts a stance which firmly opposes the revolutionary ideals of the punk movement. This stance--which is basically, think for yourself, without paying attention to all the unrealistic talk of violent and anarchic revolutions--might seem a strange message from a band whose music appears so angry and nihilistic. The band's commitment and sincerity, however, is so genuine that Husker...
...course, hardcore is not the first movement in rock whose message broke away from the musical tradition it perpetuated. The punk movement, for instance, was essentially a backlash against the free love and peace spirit of the hippie era. Yet, the punks use a traditional rock format (albeit in a much harsher, angrier form than that of the 60s) as their instrument in fighting the rock music of the 60s and 70s. The punk movement may have started as a rebellion against the falseness of the decaying ideas of the hippie revolution. But by the 80s, the slashed haircuts...
Husker Du, and its fellow hardcore bands, however, have attempted to break away from the inflammatory, anarchic message inherent in much of today's punk and new wave music. In a sense, Husker Du's statement. "You want to change the world by breaking rules and laws/People don't do things like that/in the real world at all" can be interpreted as a condemnation of the message of other recent bands...
Nevertheless, while Husker Du might oppose the punk ethos, they use a very similar musical style. With Bob Mould's blazing, distorted guitar, and his hoarse, throaty voice angrily trying to shout its way through the dense wall of sound, this sounds like a souped-up har her hybrid of punk and heavy metal. Thus, just as the punk movement revamped the rock of the 60s and early 70s while taking their inspiration from the spare, fast style form 50s rock'n roll. Husker Du in turn revamp the punk format deriving their inspiration from some of the heavy metal...
...message and ideals more clearly than any other on the album. Behind the fast, clean guitar line which draws the listener into the album and the waves of distortion built around it, Mould rasps out angry, intelligent lyrics which forcefully attack the violent and destructive rhetoric of punk rockers. With lines like "People don't do things like that in the real world at all," this song ultimately comes across as a powerful, heartfelt plea for sanity...