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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Album from a band that is truly missed..., May 26, 2004
In the early 90s, it looked like good music was finally about to take back the radio waves. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, and Soul Asylum, all offering passionate rock and roll and putting to rest years of drek like Bon Jovi, Poison, Warrant, and Motley Crue. Sadly, ever since the mid/late 90s, bands like Soul Asylum are rarely heard on mainstream radio. It's a shame because Dave Pirner & co. know how to write and arrange songs, something that often seems lost on the current crop of bands like Nickelback and Linkin Park that have taken over the airwaves.What I love most about this album is that there's no formula to it. Songs didn't have to resort to the "soft verse, heavy chorus, soft verse, heavy chorus" mode of a lot of late 90s and current rock. A song that starts with acoustic guitars as the main instrument STAYS with the acoustic guitars throughout the whole song. "Runaway Train" definitely ranks up there as one of the best songs of the 90s. "Black Gold" & "Somebody to Shove" are also exquisitely arranged songs that were so well produced that they sound just as fresh now as they did over ten years ago. "Get on Out" is the best song The Who never wrote. An eclectic album, it features great Aerosmith-like hard rock riffs in "April Fool," but also country-tinged numbers like "New World" and "Homesick." What this album really makes me think of is how much passion is missing in rock today. Sure, there's tons of great new music out there today, but it is harder to find than it was in the early 90s. _Grave Dancer's Union_ is an example of a band that knows how to inject songs with melody, passion, and originality.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Strong Breakthrough Album, July 18, 2002
Until the release of "Grave Dancer's Union," Soul Asylum looked fated to labor fruitlessly in the wilderness like fellow Minneapolis rockers The Replacements. That all changed with the 1991 Nirvana revolution and "Union," thanks to some excellent songwriting and a way-overplayed hit single. "Runaway Train," is that single, a throwback to a 1980s power ballad. Fortunately, the album also contained the punkish single "Somebody to Shove," and a storytelling single in "Black Gold." The rest of the material alternates between rockers as ballads, with highlights such as the catchy refrain of "Keep it Up," the nostalgic "Homesick," "Without a Trace," and a superb closing track in "The Sun Maid."Overall, Soul Asylum's breakthrough album is one of the better things to follow in the wake of Nirvana in the early 1990s.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Minnesota rocks, January 20, 2005
GRAVE DANCERS UNION vaulted Soul Asylum to previously unattainable heights of popularity. Their first effort for Columbia Records after years of neglect from A&M Records. Rhetoric doesn't do justice in describing the vast package here. Quite simply, Soul Asylum is/was? a great rock and roll band with an expanse of tastes, influences and styles. All are effective when applied to their own songs. "Somebody To Shove," "Black Gold" and "Runaway Train" are as different as three songs can get. They are also as great as three songs can get. The totally awesome Replacements tried but not enough of you paid attention. The torch as Minnesota's next great band was passed to Soul Asylum.
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