Since the demise of Husker Du (surely the next bunch of Amerindie pioneers due for the resurrection shuffle) Bob Mould has, with his solo albums and Sugar, gone about his craft in an unpretentious and stouthearted manner.
In many ways, he’s a sort of Richard Thompson blooded in mid-’80s Minneapolis – the same formal, almost Elizabethan phrasing applied to meat and potatoes journeyman rock.
The album title is apposite; neither a strutting cocksman nor a flagrant queen, Mould conducts his business with an self-effacing efficiency.
All of which you’d think makes for dull-as-hell music. But Bob knows how to craft a tune.
‘Paralyzed’, ‘Beating Heart The Prize’, ‘Underneath Days’ – if you’ve heard a note of anything he’s done up until now, you’ll know what to expect. This is the first full-metal-jacket band album he’s made in some time, buffed up with Fugazi man Brendan Canty’s clattery drums, walls of layered guitars, and Mould’s own emotive vocals (the mountain top declamation of the opening ‘Circles’ may be an all time high).
Apart from the odd finicky production doo-hickey (an ill-chosen vocoder on 'Shine Your Light Love Hope’), he sticks to rock’s primary colours. Accordingly, Body Of Song will hardly kick-start a cultural revolution or even inspire any college theses, but it is a resolute and utterly, uh, dependable piece of work.