Former Husker Du frontman Bob Mould has been maintaining a steady solo career for over three decades, and is wasting no time following up from lat year’s Sunshine Rock with another studio album release set for this fall. This upcoming project is called Blue Hearts, and will be released via Merge on September 25.
The first single from the project “American Crisis” has been released, and is an electrifying alternative rock song, with hard hitting guitar chords and pounding drums driving the song. The song takes a political approach, comparing the 1980s Reagan era, which his first band Husker Du lived through, and compares it to many of the issues that are occurring today.
This latest song was reportedly written during two sessions for Sunshine Rock, according to the Brooklyn Vegan, however it was deemed as “too heavy” for the project, which mostly stuck to a hard rock oriented sound. While tracks such as “Sin King” held thinly veiled political themes, “American Crisis” tackles them with lyrics including “I never thought I’d see this bullshit again / To come of age in the ’80s was bad enough / We were marginalized and demonized / I watched a lot of my generation die / Welcome back to American crisis.”
Mould compared the inaction of the Evangelical Right in the 1980s in regards to the AIDS/HIV crisis to the current discourse happening in American politics regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. The performer will also be donating proceeds from this song to the Black Visions Collective and OutFront Minnesota until June 7.
“‘American Crisis’ is a tale of two times,” Mould explained. “Past Time and Present Time. The parallels between 1984 and 2020 are a bit scary for me: telegenic, charismatic leaders, praised and propped up by extreme Evangelicals, either ignoring an epidemic (HIV/AIDS) or being outright deceitful about a pandemic (COVID-19).”
Blue Hearts tracklist
1. Heart on My Sleeve
2. Next Generation
3. American Crisis
4. Fireball
5. Forecast of Rain
7. When You Left
8. Siberian Butterfly
9. Everyth!ng to You
10. Racing to the End
11. Baby Needs a Cookie
12. Little Pieces
13. Leather Dreams
14. Password to My Soul
15. The Ocean
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