The first major fruits of HUSKER DU's association with SST Records and their first visit to Total Access Studios in California's Redondo Beach with producer Spot is much more like it! Indeed, this is where the distinctive sound of the trio's finest records - something akin to THE BEATLES playing with roaring chainsaws - was first spawned.
Bear in mind it's still embryonic at this stage. "Metal Circus" - 7 tunes in around 18 minutes - is still fast, snotty and overcharged, but both Mould's supercranked angst and Hart's counterpoint melodic flair are beginning to make their presence felt here and both are starting to sing their own compositions.
Mould mostly dominates, but Spot has successfully harnessed his gleaming aluminium powerchord thunder and his turbulent riffing on the likes of "Real World" and the alcoholic anthem "First Of The Last Calls" is brutally compelling in the extreme.
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Perhaps even better though, are Hart's two compositions. "It's Not Funny Anymore" allows that great tremulous voice of his to shine through for the first time, while the shocking "Diane" - an unhinged tale of rape and murder later radically revamped by THERAPY? - would become a live favourite. Both also demonstrate how crucial to the plot the under-rated Greg Norton was too, his nagging, minor-chord lines underpinning both these songs brilliantly.
"Metal Circus" then, is HUSKER DU's true birth, but still - in the winter of 1982/83 - only a signpost of the feverish creativity now ready to erupt over the next five years.
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