Soul Asylum: Grave Dancers Union : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

With the now-defunct Replacements and H'fcsker D'fc, Soul Asylum formed an unholy, '80s trinity: hard-core Minneapolitans with bleeding hearts and big guitars. All three fought punk dogma by actually improving with age; sole survivors Dave Pirner and his three cohorts are now working up to legend status. Volume lowered but intensity intact, they barely seem the band that once bore the moniker Loud Fast Rules: "Grave Dancers Union" veers as often folkward as it does toward chugging rock. Booker T. guests on organ, and strings add depth, but it's Pirner's way with pathos that makes his songs simmer. In a voice as evocative as rainfall he sings, "I'm homesick for the home I never had" or "See the open mouth of my suitcase saying leave this place," he comes on as a protogrunge Hank Williams.

Blind Melon, on the other hand, are downright breezy. "No Rain" (". . . my life is pretty plain/I like watchin' the puddles gather rain") encapsulates the mind-set: slacker with Zen aspirations. Influences from the '70s