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Rating: To discuss this album, we must place it in a historical context, and before arriving at this 1988 version, we need to go back at least seven years to 1981, when the band didn't yet exist, and the members called themselves Loud Fast Rules and had already recorded songs like "Black And Blue" (present here in a live version previously featured in the compilation "Barefoot And Pregnant").
It was only in 1983 that Soul Asylum was born, debuting in 1984 with the album "Say What You Will... Everything Can Happen", a nine-track EP still very raw.
In 1988, when the band had already released several albums, this version was released. It revisits the debut album by modifying the title and adding five tracks that were recorded at the time of its release but then mysteriously disappeared at the time of publication.
The album is produced by Bob Mould, a champion of the 1980s hardcore punk movement with Hüsker Dü, and the influence of this genre is evident in many tracks, filled with youthful anger, with still immature lyrics and instinctive, animalistic sounds, still very far from the style for which the band would become famous.
In some cases, however, the effort succeeds due to the ability to combine hardcore fury with catchy choruses, as in the initial "Draggin Me Down", featuring an almost metal riff (did someone mention Iron Maiden?) or the catchy "Broken Glass". Other times it succeeds a bit less (almost the entire second half) due to various flaws evidently dictated by youthful age. The leader David Pirner (who moved from drums to microphone) still has to discover himself as a singer and, more than singing, often ends up shouting, rarely breaking free from the confines of hc.
When the band decides to venture into new territories, they often find themselves contorted in tracks weighed down by their own (good) intentions, as in the clumsy and difficult attempt to unite hc and jazz in "Masquerade", an unsuccessful experiment in creating an ambiguous atmosphere that bores and makes it very difficult to reach the end of listening.
An emblem of this immaturity is the central "Religiavision", verbose and pretentious, which, opening side B, should have given a boost but instead ends up sinking the listening experience of the second half.
Fortunately, there are also other interesting episodes like "Do You Know", a bullet of pure hardcore stamp or the contemplative and quirky "Voodoo Doll", with a sticky and contagious chorus.
But, above all, the following "Stranger", the most accessible track of the lot, heralding future successes in the form of rural bittersweet ballads that many will appreciate, like the mega-hit "Runaway Train". Here the track still has a hint of immaturity, but it is already soaked with those bitter fragments of life that will be the band's stylistic signature for entire albums. All this is flavored with a sax leading the way, which contrasts with the harsh and raw sounds that surround it in the other tracks.
In short, we are clearly talking about a stumbling start but one rich with points of interest that will be reworked and improved by the band itself in the future, to the extent that it will hardly be recognizable to any early fans.
The title of the album, "... Karl Sold The Truck" ("Karl ha venduto il furgone"), refers to the bassist Karl Mueller, who sold his pick-up to purchase a van for the band's 1984 tour.
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