Though his earlier music had power to spare, Bob Mould blows the doors down on his latest record, ”Black Sheets of Rain” (Virgin).
With its howling gusts of electric guitar and tortured vocals, it approaches the undiluted intensity of John Lennon`s ”Plastic Ono Band.”
Mould, who headlines Saturday at the Riviera, understatedly agrees that his second solo album is ”more aggressive” than its predecessor, the introspective, acoustic-flavored ”Workbook.”
Its release coincides with a recent move from rural Minnesota to Manhattan, where the ”drug and gang violence, the homeless situation are in my face everyday,” but it`s more a product of his musical environment than his private one.
” `Workbook` was me and an acoustic guitar on the farm (outside Minneapolis) with no audience, no guarantees, writing songs for myself,” he says. ”The new record is what happened after we took those songs on the road and had people yelling in our faces every night,” including two memorable shows last year at Cabaret Metro.
At that time, Mould was working with a second guitarist in a quartet format, as if to put some distance between himself and his old band, the groundbreaking Minneapolis trio Husker Du.
”All in all, the Husker Du experience was great, but after it was over it was terrible,” he says, referring to news stories in which former bandmates blamed him for its dissolution. ”I like the fact that in my current band, when someone has a bone to pick they do it immediately, rather than wait two years.”
On ”Black Sheets of Rain,” Mould returns to a power-trio lineup with two band members from his 1989 tour, Pere Ubu bassist Tony Maimone and Golden Palominos drummer Anton Fier, but he won`t ask them to play any Husker Du songs.
”I may do a few by my lonesome, but it`s not fair to ask my band to perform songs that weren`t written with them in mind,” Mould says.
”Black Sheets of Rain,” however, was tailored for the Mould-Maimone-Fier combo: ”It captures the impact of what we do collectively,” he says.
That gut-level immediacy is especially evident on the searing
”Sacrifice/Let There Be Peace,” which concludes with Mould doubled over in primal-scream agony. A sample lyric: ”If I ride on the rails/I shall ride them alone/And if I need all this pain/I will find it alone.”
”I just stared at the words for hours with no distractions-just those words; I put myself where I was at when I wrote them,” Mould says. ”I told myself I had one chance to express that emotion, that it`s do or die . . . and,” he says, chuckling, ”I have no idea how I`m going to do that every night on the road.”
If Mould`s lyrics sound as if they hit close to home, that`s the way they were intended.
”The record is me exploring me,” he says. ”And if it seems like the world is sliding downhill, it just means I have to scream a little bit louder. ”Besides, I don`t write when I`m happy, because I`m too busy enjoying the moment. It`s only when I`m recovering from the throes of misery that I feel the need to assess things.”
Beginning with the title song, ”Black Sheets of Rain” is sprinkled with references to environmental decay, but the album is hardly a treatise on rain forests or the ozone layer. It`s more about the decay of truth and the breakdown of lines of communication.
”Music can have a profound influence, and I don`t want to misuse that by using the stage as a forum for my own personal agenda of favorite issues,” he says. ”Obviously, I`m concerned about the environment, especially everytime I go to the water fountain for a drink or breathe the city air, but I use those words as colorations, suggestions, images to fit the songs.”
For all his seriousness, Mould is not immune to the allure of a great pop song, and he tried to write one on the new album, ”It`s Too Late.”
”The attitude of the European press was, `How dare you!` ” Mould says.
”But I wanted to write a song that you can hum and sing along with because it`s a good exercise to practice your craft.
”Not everything has to be a long, involved story, not every painting has to be great art. It`s like building a table; even without the ornate carvings it can be a good, functional table.”
