• Classic Album: Hüsker Dü – Zen Arcade

    June 19, 2014 - By 

    From the moment you press play, you know that you’re in for something special. Those drums, militaristic and intensely precise, ushers you into this false sense of rigidity and form. Then that bass comes in with its thick tone and fuzzy edges, blurring the sound and removing focus while never losing time. We have a second to breathe and adapt before that guitar comes in. Phasered and distorted to all hell with a piercing shrill undertone, its presence is pushing this carefully constructed structure to brink collapse. This wall of sound is finally scaled by an almost nonsensical barking vocal…

  • The Story Behind: Hüsker Dü (Part I)

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    The sky is the colour of a television tuned to a dead channel. The ground is muddy and wet, and the detritus from wrecked automobiles are all around. Three figures stand, apart, but somehow together, and the air has the static charge of electricity. This is the Zen Arcade, and anything can happen here. When it was released in 1984, Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade immediately stood out as being something new. Previously, the band had been one of the initial glut of American bands inspired by the thrilling rush of punk, taking the form and making it harder, faster, more aggressive, becoming…