Unusually, for a best-of by a band that started indie and didn't become stars until hooking up with a major, Black Gold: The Best of Soul Asylum spans their entire pre-2000 career, starting with a 1985 track from their second LP. Naturally, their output on the major label that issued this compilation, Columbia, is emphasized; there are just four songs from the Twin/Tone era, and nothing at all from their 1984 debut, Say What You Will Clarence...Karl Sold the Truck. So it's mostly Soul Asylum...   [ read more ]

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If Say What You Will...'s inchoate, raunchy blur is a bit much, then album number two, again produced by Bob Mould, straightens things out a bit and lets riffs emerge from the walls of distortion. The record's first single, "Tied to the Tracks," is a rip-snorting bull ride of volume and power, but then again, so is much of the record. Although they were derisively written off by some wags as Hnsker Jr., that was a critical view offered by the short-sighted. They may have shared the same sound, but...   [ read more ]

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