More than any other band that emerged out of the US hardcore punk scene, Minneapolis’s Hüsker Dü paved the way for what would happen next. This beautifully curated set covering their earliest years reveals a band already sporting an advanced case of split musical personality: Midwestern punk rockers unsure whether they wanted to scream their way through songs called Obnoxious and Guns at My School or do something more thoughtful and arty and strange. The hardest of hardcore bands – the edge-of-hysteria live recordings of them in full flight in 1981 are still pretty startling nearly 40 years on – who attempted to conceal a penchant for 60s psych-pop melodicism behind their torrential sound, before finally giving up and just going with their instincts: their cover of Donovan’s Sunshine Superman is taken at warp speed, but without any accompanying sneer. It often feels like you’re listening to the birth of something more than a band: the contradictions at Hüsker Dü’s heart would fuel American alt-rock for years to come, from the Pixies to grunge to emo.
