New Day Rising by Husker Du

New Day Rising, Hüsker Dü's third album, came out on SST in 1985, and it pulls off a neat trick: slower and more melodic than the hardcore blitz of their early records, yet somehow, as critics have put it, meaner and more relentless than Zen Arcade before it. Writer Andrew Earles heard it as the poppier side of that record stretched into a whole album, and there's a streak of 1960s pop buried in the racket.

The Saint Paul, Minnesota trio split the writing and the singing: Bob Mould's guitar and baritone on some songs, Grant Hart's drums and higher voice on others, with Greg Norton holding down the bass. The sound is scratchy and raw, guitars arriving in a blizzard of distortion, and some of it tips over into pop punk. The title track is a battering ram, and "Celebrated Summer" is a buzzing, headlong rush that shows where the band's move toward alternative rock was heading.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.