Admiral of the Sea

At the British Heart Foundation charity shop in Chepstow (now seemingly closed) one pandemic Saturday morning I found a cache of late '80s/early '90s indie records including a single by Bob Mould's band Sugar and this 12" by Grant Hart's Nova Mob; as well as Hart's first two solo singles. I wondered if perhaps there had also been some Hüsker Dü vinyl that another punter had snapped up first.

I'd been slow getting in to Hüsker Dü, only climbing aboard that bandwagon when it had stopped moving, after the release of Warehouse: Songs and Stories. But I listened with interest to what I heard of Mould's and Hart's subsequent work, almost buying Sugar's Copper Blue; and hoping to buy (but, at the time, failing to track down) the self-titled Nova Mob album, having taken a shine to their song 'Old Empire'.

On the A side of this record are two mixes of 'Admiral of the Sea'. The 'First Ave. Mix' has the drums pushed right to the fore, such as may have sounded great over a club's sound-system back in 1990, but I prefer the more evenly-balanced 'Run Off Mix' that follows it. Over on side B there are three tracks. 'The Last Days of Pompeii' is another good song, one that was granted (unlike the doomed city) a slow and quiet fade-out. 'Getaway in Time' is an appealing instrumental track, with some chiming mallet instrument (or maybe celesta - I don't know) driving its melody. Lastly there's a lacklustre live version of Willie Dixon's 'I Just Want to Make Love to You'. A mixed bag, overall.

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