Last year, amid rumors of internal dissension and substance abuse, Hüsker Dü did a supernova, and the experience appears to have left everyone involved a little dazed and confused. For a solo EP released several months after the breakup, drummer Grant Hart recorded a bitter toast to his band mates called "2541," named after the address of a Minneapolis studio where the band often worked. "Now everything is over," he sang angrily over an arrangement of muted drums and sloppy guitars. "Everything is done/Everything's in boxes/At 2541."

Apparently, Hart isn't the only one who feels stung by the experience. Bob Mould, the band's guitarist, opens his irate first solo album, Workbook, with a lyrical acoustic-guitar instrumental that wouldn't sound out of place on a Leo Kottke album, and later on he sings, "I knew that this would happen sooner or later/That I'd get disillusioned with it all/ Just throw my hands up to the sky and say/Oh, Lord, what happened/What happened to make things run this way?"

Clearly, this isn't the same Bob Mould who, Gibson Flying V slung near his hip, spewed out buckshot riffs and, with Hart and bassist Greg Norton, made Hüsker Dü the preeminent thrash-pop band of this decade. But as Mould reminds himself on Workbook, "All the words we said yesterday/That's a long time ago." An album obsessed with shattered expectations and bitter accusations, Workbook is not an upbeat record – nor should it be, given the circumstances of the Hüskers' breakup. Instead, Workbook is the recorded equivalent of the first hint of fall slapping you in the face after a particularly torrid summer.

Mould must have realized that any attempt to recreate the Hüskers' propulsive drive would have been foolhardy, because he hasn't really tried. Instead, he's lowered the volume switch on his guitars and – with a small backup band consisting of Golden Palominos drummer Anton Fier, Pere Ubu bassist Tony Maimone and cellist Jane Scarpantoni (of the Hoboken, New Jersey, band Tiny Lights) – created an airy, panoramic sound that makes Hüsker attempts at chamber pop, like "Hardly Getting Over It," sound claustrophobic by comparison. Mould's snarl of a voice is as razor sharp as ever, but he's couched it in finger-picking gentility ("Heartbreak a Stranger"), sprawling guitar epics ("Lonely Afternoon," "Wishing Well") and power pop ("See a Little Light"). Throughout the album, Scarpantoni's cello shades each brooding thought perfectly.

The autumnal feel of the music is an ideal match for Mould's ambitious lyrics. Like someone jotting down notes to retrace a mistake, the stream-of-consciousness lyrics on Workbook circle around several themes. Themes of betrayal crop up repeatedly. "Sinners & Their Repentances" is an admission that Mould, too, may be guilty of sins, but by the end he is singing, "But now I can't decide/If you told the truth or you lied/You seem to sin so well." Even more biting is "Poison Years," the track that appears most explicitly to be about the Hüskers ("At the end of this rope/A rope at the end of the line/I see you swing by your neck on a vine"). Starting in an almost folkie vein, the song builds with each verse until Mould is spitting out guitar leads that underscore the lacerating lyrics.

When he is not dwelling on the past, Mould is looking to escape and lick his wounds. In two of the album's most bracing tracks, "Brasilia Crossed With Trenton" and "Compositions for the Young and Old," he returns to old stomping grounds and rediscovers the joys of small-town life. In the former song – a sprawling folk rocker – he takes pleasure again in "open fields," department stores ("the only place that I buy clothes anymore") and "no buildings over two stories high." In the latter he comes upon some of his old writings and remembers the days of "playing cards with your neighbors on the back porch/Singing with an old beat-up guitar/Going to the local swimming hole." But he adds, with only a hint of wistfulness, "Things used to be so simple a long time ago/Now everything is so expensive and complicated."

Yes, they are, and what lends those words added weight is their context. The American underground of the Eighties isn't what it used to be: R.E.M. is on the arena circuit; Paul Westerberg is leading a clean-and-sober edition of the Replacements into "adulthood"; and bands like Hüsker Dü and the Long Ryders are history. Along the way there have been casualties and setbacks, so it probably isn't accidental that Workbook ends with "Whichever Way the Wind Blows," a doom-and-gloom slasher that recalls Richard Thompson's least optimistic moments. "If you ever travel that road/You better keep over your side," Mould sings over a barrage of feedback, wailing guitar leads and a brain-melting riff. "And keep-in' your hands on the wheel/That road be a long road to ride."

In addition to allowing Mould to blow off some steam finally, "Whichever Way the Wind Blows" is an appropriately cautionary tale to close an album full of them. Its sentiments are a little moralistic, but coming after the demise of his band, they ring frighteningly true. The road to success and maturity can indeed be treacherous for anyone who ventures onto it, but Workbook is proof that every once in a while, it's worth it. (RS 552)

DAVID BROWNE