Album Review: Grant Hart - The Argument

You are Grant Hart. You were part of one of the most referenced and revered bands of its era. But Husker Du-wise, that Bob Mould guy seems the more widely regarded of the band's creative hub. Although, you do have a smaller – but intense – fanbase who champion your work. You survived the well-documented drug issues, the recent death of your parents, and an ongoing lawsuit of the misappropriation of their money by nursing staff. Oh, then your home burnt down.

In this maelstrom, you make an album. But not documenting and/or maybe exorcising your personal shitstorm, The Argument is a 20-track 'concept album' built around an unpublished work by sometime friend and collaborator, legendary outsider writer William S. Burroughs. He'd taken John Milton's 17th century epic biblical poem, Paradise Lost, and 'updated it' with appearances by aliens and President Truman. This is not going to be songs of moon and spoon and June.

The music is virtually all Hart-created, even the heavenly choirs of Awake Arise! himself multi-tracked endlessly. That song, incidentally, is Satan's expulsion deciding it's 'better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven', as the old saying goes. It's not all so grandiose. Letting Me Out comes on a near-Buddy Holly rockabilly shuffle, while Hart's half-spoken singing recalls both Burroughs, and his own time as a Patti Smith sideman. With muses like I Am Death, it was always going to be heavy going, but this often tips to the simply pompous. That said, many devotees of the church of the sacred Hart will likely sing its praises. The rest of us, probably not so much.