Sometimes it seems that Paul Westerberg isn't putting nearly as much effort into his career as his diehard fans are. It's maddening that the man behind impassioned Replacements classics such as "Unsatisfied" and "Answering Machine" seems to have spent much of the past seven years trying to recapture the light feel of pop-rock trifles like "Kiss Me on the Bus." The fact that Westerberg still animates loyalists after two disappointing Replacements albums and a so-so solo début speaks volumes about the impact of his earlier work ... or, I'll venture, his current work.

Eventually is hardly the Let It Be of the '90s, but it's the best thing the Kurt Cobain of thirtysomethings has recorded since the 'Mats's Pleased to Meet Me. Though Eventually is as tentative a collection of songs as its title might seem to indicate, at least Westerberg has toned down the self-consciousness that marred such recent songs as "Dyslexic Heart" and "A Star Is Bored."

Sure, Westerberg is mostly content to stay home and watch the rabbits in his backyard, happy to have "Given the World the Slip" [music: 366Kbytes .aiff]. But even if this album's full-on rockers aren't very convincing, the winsome piano ballad "Good Day" is affecting, and "Hide 'n' Seekin'" [music: 366Kbytes .aiff] is haunted by the "rock 'n' roll ghost" Westerberg sang of in 1989. Here, it's hard to tell if the apparition quivering in the shadows is the ghost of late Replacements guitarist Bob Stinson or Westerberg himself.

Westerberg may be haunted by the devotion his achievements have inspired, but the mind of Twin Cities punk-rock peer Bob Mould is focused on more immediate anguish. Mould's first solo project in six years (he recently disbanded Sugar) is brilliant and unremittingly dark. Entirely self-written, -performed, and -produced, the eponymous album opens with Mould bellowing "sick of myself, sick of everything I am," and ends with him singing, "if I couldn't hold you, I'd end it all." In between, he rails with brutal bluntness about his personal and creative strife. Someone he "expected to grow old with" has broken his heart, and he's utterly grief-stricken.

In contrast to Westerberg, who's always had a bit of a whimper to go along with his drunken swagger, Mould is fierce when he's wounded. This is one reason why no matter how many times Mould insists he's "as useless as can be," the urgency of his cathartic music argues to the contrary.
By Steven Stolder