Search - Sugar (B. Mould) :: Beaster

An absolute must that will last past teenage obsession

Paul Baker | 12/02/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a rare treat. The 'copper blue' sugar debut everyone champions is not a patch on this in my opinion, as it suffers, at times, from the wimpiness and plain weakness (lyric wise) of just about all bob moulds post sst husker du work.

It is indeed (as one good person said) an album rather than an ep.

The sequel to old husker du, and the only one availible.

I would highly recommend you trip out to this minor masterpiece of melodic rock.

Not unlike the foo fighters sound (dave growl clearly influenced by mould and husker du bandmember hart) this is how you want it to sound.

Utterly Incredible.

I recommend the very cd you are looking at (a great cd for a change, no need to pick up the vinyl)



"

An thermo-nuclear bomb for the ears

L. D. Meckel | Perth, WA | 02/28/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Without question, 'Beaster' is Bob Mould's masterpiece. In fact, it stands as one of the - if not THE - masterpieces of "post-punk", or whatever you'd call this sort of music.



This album detonates through your speakers at incredible intensity - yet with remarkably controlled passion - from the get-go, and builds layers of resonating sound and repeated motifs (lyrical and musical) on each subsequent track, reaching a cathartic crescendo perfectly on Judas Cradle/JC Auto, right in the middle of the album, before subsiding in waves of crashing, imploding dimunition. That it is there and gone in just over 30 minutes is all the more impressive for its distillation of raw passion into aural magnificence. Quite simply, it obliterates, as elegantly as a mushroom cloud, all the "ear cheese" that's been clogging up your airwaves, leaving a stark, yet refreshingly pristine landscape in its wake. Awesome, in the most old testament meaning that I can impart to the word.



Mould's music is not every listener's cup of tea, but he made some of the seminal music of the mid- to late 1980s, and deserves a spot in every serious listener's library, not only for this album, but also for his work on Husker Du's 'Flip Your Wig', and his two outstanding solo albums, 'Workbook' and 'Black Sheets of Rain'. 'Beaster' far outstrips anything else by Sugar, and much of Husker Du's catalogue as well. One of the great albums of the last 20 years.

"