Okay, let's get this out of the way: there's a vocoder song on Body Of Song, and it's not very good -- like Cher's "Believe In Love", it totally ruins what could be a fun effect. Also, as the song -- "(Shine Your) Light Love Hope" -- is the album's second track, it's easy to forget that opener "Circles" totally kicks ass and instead wonder if Mould is continuing the "holiday from rock" that he started with his last album, 2002's Modulate. Fortunately, Body Of Song represents a return to the guitar-based songwriting that Mould patented twenty years ago.

With loads of guitars and a clear post-punk/pop sensibility, Body Of Song is definitely the product of the former Hüsker Dü and Sugar frontman. In addition to "Circles", there are unabashed rockers like "Paralyzed" and "Best Thing", complete with guitar solos and shouted sing-along choruses in true Copper Blue fashion. But this isn't a total punk-fest; Body Of Song is also the product of the Bob Mould who released the highly personal and pensive Workbook in 1989. The ballad ratio is certainly higher than on any album his previous bands ever released, thanks to songs like "Days Of Rain" and "Gauze Of Friendship", breathy odes to relationships that soured too early.

They're not the only songs that are relatively easy to read. On Body Of Song, cryptic lyrics are out, and clarity is in. Mould deals in extremes of the simplest of emotions here. When he spits out, "you just lost the best thing you never had" ("Best Thing"), it's obvious that the music clearly matches the lyrical intent. In "High Fidelity", he wonders "who could live with me / in high fidelity?" before descending chimes and an organ solo clarify that the question is rhetorical. Likewise, when Mould observes, "you think you love him / or someone like him / he reminds you of a boy you dated once or twice" on "Gauze Of Friendship", his introspection hits a little close to home for anyone who has ever been on the rebound.

Finally, Body Of Song is the product of the same Bob Mould who dove into the deep end of electronics his last time out. Vocoder aside (the treated vocals are also heard in the background of the clubby "I Am Vision, I Am Sound"), the pristine production is the result of someone who has grown comfortable in the modern recording studio. This isn't the same live-to-tape process that Hüsker Dü and other bands of their era wore as a badge of honor -- these songs have been stretched, cut up and put back together without losing the passion that makes them so immediately arresting in the first place. If Mould missed the forest for the trees on Modulate, this time out he's taken pains to ensure that he never loses sight of the larger picture. And although this is most clearly felt on "Beating Heart The Prize", a true Mould epic closer, it's obvious throughout the album. Body of Song is a record that plays like a book. Perhaps even the vocoder track deserves a second chance...