Album Review: Grant Hart - The Argument

Okay, let's clear up the obvious comparisons. Yes, it is confusing, but no, this isn't Fugazi's The Argument. And though it's an ambitious double album, and Grant Hart spent the better part of the '80s drumming in Hüsker Dü, it really bears little resemblance to the 1984 classic Zen Arcade. Where Zen Arcade was a tense battle of wits between Hart's radio-friendly dream pop sensibilities and Hüsker Dü guitarist Bob Mould's melodic punk rock inclinations, Hart's third full-length solo record has the multi-instrumentalist fully losing himself in his gorgeously whimsical proclivities, and realising the tremendous potential that 2009's Hot Wax promised but never delivered.

Loosely following the course of John Milton's 17^th century epic poem Paradise Lost (expect lots of religious imagery) over the course of a 20-song record, The Argument feels like a pool of cotton-wool for listeners to fall asleep in. It's gloriously soft and warm, but as you slowly you sink into it you begin to realise it's also rather claustrophobic. The altogether saccharine feeling of the '60s pop-influenced Morningstar is countered by the cynicism of It Isn't Love, which features the catchiest/most depressing refrain since Fucked Up sung “we're dying on the inside”.

Being a double album, there's some fat to trim on The Argument. That's to be expected; the only double album to date that has been top-to-bottom perfect is the Minutemen's Double Nickles On The Dime. Thankfully though, there's nothing as heinous as Zen Arcade's Reoccuring Dreams, and the expansive warmth of tracks like Golden Chain and Is The Sky The Limit? counters Hart's minor missteps, and The Argument resounds as a triumph of heady, ethereal alternative rock.