If "Metal Circus" was the sound of HUSKER DU actually learning to finish the same song at the same time and honing some cracking melodic skills in the process, then "Zen Arcade" found them building the bridge that would lead them (ultimately) to a far larger audience.
And what a record "Zen Arcade" is! A real old-fashioned double album, stuffed with stonking tunes that career around like a marauding rhino on crack cocaine, displaying a couldn't-give-a-flying-one attitude at all times, before ending with two amazing tracks, Grant Hart's crunching "Turn On The News" (still his finest anthem?) and - the audacity! - a 13-minute phased psychedelic epic with dubby improvisation aplenty called "Recurring Dreams."
Bob Mould's frantic sleevenotes convey the excitement of the period, recalling that "everything is first-take, except for "Something I Learned Today" and "Newest Industry" which started too fast" and that "the whole thing took about 85 hours, the last 40 hours straight for mixing." Phew! Thrillsville.
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Virtually all of "Zen Arcade" reeks of full-throttle class, from Mould's supreme energy stunners like "Chartered Trips" and the anguished "Whatever", through piano doodles, some great fluff like "Hare Krsna" - the HUSKERS' regally taking the piss whilst re-arranging the notorious BO DIDDLEY riff - and Grant Hart's "Never Talking To You Again" that shows their detractors just how effective these hi-tension rantathons could be even in an acoustic context.
"Zen Arcade" remains the sound of a band mainlining on confidence and dangerously upping the sonic ante. For the next three years they'd be unstoppable
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