Unlike many of the bands I tend to cover in this space, Soul Asylum were a college rock band who made it out of the '80s to become one of the biggest "alternative" rock bands of the '90s - they were one of the alternative-era major label signings that stuck, having been affiliated with a major label for almost twenty-five years now. (Seems they made it out of the '90s, too; I just learned in doing my usual in-depth research for this piece that Soul Asylum released their most recent album, Delayed Reaction, this year. What, it's not on your top 10 for 2012?)
By the time I ever got around to hearing the band it was when you couldn't turn on a radio without being run over by "Runaway Train," and it was hard to imagine they'd ever been just another scrappy indie band from Minneapolis, never mind that they could ever remind anyone of Hüsker Dü. I confess I was never curious enough to dig into their back catalog, but reading these comments might have finally piqued my curiosity enough to get me to check out this album.
"These guys remind me of Hüsker Dü, but better. That looks like my dad. -> Oh! Produced by Bob Mould (duh - now I understand my 1st comment)." "This rocks pretty damn hard. WHOA!" "I like." "'Ain't that Tough' chorus sounds like Buffalo Springfield." "OK - but nothing special." "Hüsker Dü, Pt. II." "This is better than Hüsker Dü at their finest." "Yeah." "'Whoa!' Ya." "Looking back from 1990 [aw, that's cute - looking all the way back from 22 years ago], this is their only truly great LP. The best live, awfully close here, and perennially disappointing otherwise. [I can just imagine how this guy would have felt in '92.]" "'Ship o' Fools' = good fondueism song." [There have been many times in writing this series where I've been confused by someone's handwriting, but I'm 99% sure this actually says "fondueism."] |
