While the rest of us - hopefully, anyhow, for sanity's sake - get the benefit of refining our anger and frustration into meaningful ways as the years pile on, in order to avoid the onset of otherwise-imminent bitterness, we somehow expect these folks to carry on bashing away at the world like they're forever 22.

Now that I'm in my 30s, I'm pretty prone to recoiling in horror when considering my 22-year-old self. Sure, I'm still enraged about many of the same issues as I was back then, but at least now I feel as if I'm on the right track to channeling such energy appropriately. And I imagine I'm not alone in that conclusion - so why do we so often snark away when musicians undergo the same transformations? Why are we quick to accuse them of "going soft," or "losing their edge," to crib from LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy?

Isn't it better to age gracefully, to take all of that teeth-baring mettle of youth and funnel it into better-articulated, more world-wise fashions? The alternative is to continue with a raging pantomime of one's younger self - and we tend to be quite unkind to those who dare to strut and swagger with the same vim 'n' vigor in their 40s-and-beyond as they did in their youth. (Iggy Pop possibly excepted). Ageism is a multiedged sword, and it cuts in seemingly every possible direction - and the guys get off relatively easily, once you consider the sexist bent of our collective expectations of women in rock.

Mould is now 46, and we should be thrilled to learn that he has found some peace: read his blog and he sounds quite happy, enthusing about dance music and working out and finding a sense of community in DC. This isn't to say that District Line is some sort of feel-good collection of emancipation-anthems: most of the disc is introspective in content, and a quick scan of the lyrics finds references to razors, bullets, fallen trees, and decay. Familiar enough territory. Those who have followed his decades-long career over the years - beginning with the roaring post-hardcore punk-pop of Hüsker Dü and continuing on through wide-ranging solo works and his '90s alternative-radio/120 Minutes-adored outfit Sugar - won't exactly be blindsided by his latest missive.

Rather, the disc feels like a logical next step in Mould's career, drawing upon various familiar touchstones and assembling them in a manner which seems to say, "Here's the journey I have taken over the years, and here's where I am right now." The good news? The here-and-now sounds like a dandy place to be, actually. Has Mould mellowed out? Not exactly - District Line offers its share of snarls and barbs and full guitar fury. But he isn't pretending to be the roughest whippersnapper on the block, either. The rage might remain, but it's tempered by the benefit of experience and wisdom.

Mould has always displayed an adventurous artistic streak - even back in the Hüsker Dü days, insisting upon drawing from myriad influences and even creating a concept album (1984's SST-released Zen Arcade) in the process - and his latest offers a forceful reminder that this roaming spirit remains firmly in place. Perhaps most divisively, his recent love affair with vocoders - until now, relegated to more dancefloor-leaning compositions in his catalog - have been integrated into a few more overtly rock numbers, perhaps to the frustration of a few hybrid-fearing, never-the-twain-shall-meet fans.

These experiments are mostly successful, mostly due to Mould's understated use of such vocal-blippery, relying on more subtle manipulations within limited ranges of notes rather than opting for the full-on octave-tweakage of, say, Cher's "Believe." Whether or not these forays into production-trend playfulness arrive stamped with an expiration date - such is the risk in indulging the newest wrinkle - is a tough prediction to make without a crystal ball, but to these ears, he seems to have exercised enough restraint with the style to avoid sounding dated in a few years.

"Who Needs to Dream?" slips the faintest of blips into Mould's adenoidal delivery, and in the process updates the muscular-pop template of his Sugar days with alluring new textures. A strident guitar riff, buzzing shards of feedback, authoritative drumming (thanks to Fugazi's Brendan Canty), anthemic vocals - all of the hallmarks of that distinctive Copper Blue (Rykodisc) sound are here, but this time round we get the added bonus of slight vocal variations woven into the grain.

Another sly introduction of the vocoder into rock, "Old Highs, New Lows" glows with tasteful electronics whisked into the robust acoustic-rock of 1989's solo debut Workbook (Virgin). "Old highs, new lows / Ain't that how life goes," he offers in compellingly soothing melancholic tones, his soft croon intriguingly receiving added tenderness in its vocoderized fluctuations.

The unequivocally dancefloor-seeking "Shelter Me," however, displays Mould in full-embrace of the vocoder, with every lyric filtered through layers of vocal treatments as a club-night beat thumps away underneath him. For those who haven't heard the electronic-dalliances of his more recent albums, the arrival of such a four-to-the-floor number might come as a bit of a surprise. Fortunately, the track avoids the square peg/round hole quandary of other such flirtations. Actually, "Shelter Me" fits in rather well with the rest of the album, and I imagine that many listeners unfamiliar with Mould's dance experimentations will be quite taken by how his instantly recognizable voice can convey just as much depth and emotion when treated production-wise as an instrument.

Lest I give the impression that District Line is overrun by electronics, much praise should be offered up to Mould for displaying such an enormous emotional range with his guitar, sometimes evoking Workbook's sun-kissed backdrops - and paying homage to the brawny folk-rock of Richard Thompson along the way. In other moments it conjures up some of the garage turbulence of Hüsker Dü - though much of the disc lands squarely in the middle, with the punchy pop-hook-sparking guitar swagger that made Sugar such a big hit with the modern-rock radio set. Opener "Stupid Now," for example, with its chiming guitar patterns building up to a belt-it-out chorus shoved along by thick webs of feedback, feels like a natural progression from where Sugar left off with 1994's File Under: Easy Listening (Rykodisc). Elsewhere, "Again and Again" strides with the same sturdy acoustic-theatricality as some of Workbook's more muscular strum-it-ups, while Mould's interplay with cellist Amy Domingues on "Miniature Parade" also recalls his classic solo debut, albeit meted out with flashes of electronics and, yes, vocoder.

"Everything I say to you feels stupid now" - ah, chin up, Bob. Here's the video for "Stupid Now":

BOB MOULD
With Saturna
Wed/26, 8 p.m., $22
Great American Music Hall
859 O'Farrell, SF