t’s a chastened Bob Mould we hear on Body Of Song, crawling back to the distortion-pedal-overdrive-plus-melodic-vocals sound he pioneered in Husker Du. And it’s easy to see why: after the hostile reception to his electronica-fueled 2002 album Modulate and the indisputable statistic that zero in ten old-school Husker/Sugar fans give a rat’s ass about Mould’s dance-music side project LoudBomb or his DJ’ing team Blowoff, he was in danger of alienating his core fanbase. And as Mould’s Minneapolis peer Paul Westerberg has proven, diehard fans will continue to buy mediocre albums, as long as they reflect some shadow of an artist’s former glory—that is, as long as they sound the same. Mould sounding like Cher on Modulate did not dredge up the requisite memories of “Makes No Sense At All,” and he was made to suffer for it.

That being said, Mould is no one’s puppet, so we do get some more vocoder-inflected vox over a disco beat on “(Shine Your) Light Love Hope.” But for the most part, Body Of Song returns to guitar rock, even bringing Mould’s former Sugar bandmate David Barbe on deck for help on bass and symbolism. The problem is, in Mould’s overeagerness to illustrate his return to form, he took the returning a bit too literally: “Paralyzed,” for instance, sounds great until one notices its resemblance to Sugar’s “Helpless.” And “Missing You” isn’t too many chords removed from from Husker Du’s “Could You Be The One,” either. If Modulate was Mould’s Trans (the electronic album that helped Neil Young get sued by his label for not sounding like himself), Body Of Song is his “Old Man Down The Road”—the John Fogerty song that got him sued for plagiarizing himself.

Rehashed Bob Mould still beats most of what’s out there, though, so the album has its strengths. Opening track “Circles” rages effectively and establishes a political motif (“I know my vote doesn’t count anymore,” Mould wails) to which the album frequently returns, so much so that it’s deliciously ambiguous whether the later line “was it Sunday or last November” refers to a romantic breakup or an electoral breakdown. “Always Tomorrow” features a silky, looping bassline supplied by Mould himself, and former Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty is on hand for most of the tracks to bring his usual subtle rhythmic complexity.

Body Of Song also reaches a fever pitch in “Underneath Days,” with Mould spewing invective—again, with both personal and political overtones—in his most anguished yell since Sugar’s “J.C. Auto” over a decade ago. His fierce condemnation of these “fucked underneath days” of the Bush years makes hair stand on end, and the soaring melody ensures the song a permanent shelf life in the listener’s memory. Mould surely has more of these moments up his sleeve, and Body Of Song serves best as a peacekeeping offering to his disgruntled fans while Mould figures out how to best deploy his talent and interests within the constraints of his career. We would all do well to stay tuned.