After years of throwing albums at an apathetic wall to see what stuck, Soul Asylum finally hit pay dirt with their '92 effort Grave Dancers Union. Their two previous albums screamed frustration (Hang Time) and demonstrated their knack for writing catchy college rock songs (and the Horse They Rode In On), but this time they took a deep breath, counted to ten, and made a classy commercial album perfectly capturing the imagination of early nineties scenesters. The big hit of course was Runaway Train, bolstered by its attention grabbing video; a walking talking charity advert for missing kids. Black Gold with its war = bad theme is a similarly paced song, and ...  Read the complete review

Grave Dancers Union the 7th album by long serving rockers Soul Asylum still stands as the bands biggest commercial success to date but is also something of a mixed bag when it comes to song quality. The commercial success of the album was mostly fueled by the success of mega single 'Runaway Train' which is undoubtedly the albums (and possibly the bands career) Highlight. However there is a lot more on offer here to elevate the band above the one hit wonder status that has plagued the bands career. With 'Grave Dancers Union' Soul Asylum ditched the indie/punk sound that had them labeled as also rans throughout the 80's for a much more commercial ...  Read the complete review

Yep, this is the one with 'Runaway Train' on it. If the truth be known, Soul Asylum had been written songs of equal quality years prior to their breakthrough smash, it's just that not too many people were paying attention. Their previous album to this, 'Hang Time' was a glorious collection of ragged punk, packed with melody and shot through with the wonderful lyrics of Dave Pirner (Pre Winona) 'Grave Dancers Union' follows the modern rock template of mixing up the rock songs with a few ballads (one of which, 'New World' is probably the best thing on here) and it really seems that Pirner has managed to adapt his songwriting style to perfectly into ...  Read the complete review