Nowadays, although writing takes longer and touring gets physically harder with age, the 47-year old shows no signs of slowing down with the release of District Line on February 5. A brilliant compilation of Mould’s immediately-recognizable explosive chainsaw guitar riffs teetering upon a melodic mixture of pop rock and hints of electronica dance beats, the album’s title is a nod to his home base and sums up his past five years of living in the nation’s capital. Except for the drums, Mould created every sound and recorded the entire album in his home studio. “The vocals you hear on ‘The Silence Between Us,’ that’s the first time I sang it. That’s what most of this record is. I woke up in the morning, I played guitar and sang, and that’s where it ended up. I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to make it sound professional or better,” says Mould. Three songs in particular stand out as reminiscent of Sugar’s masterpiece Cooper Blue: “Again and Again,” “The Silence Between Us” and “Miniature Parade,” which is about the way in which people slowly reveal themselves and all their emotional debris to each other during a relationship to see if it can work and has a future.

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