Beaster

Sugar | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 22, 2005)
• Original Release Date: 1993
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rykodisc
• ASIN: B0000009VY
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #77,751 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Come Around

2. Tilted

3. Judas Cradle

4. JC Auto

5. Feeling Better

6. Walking Away

Editorial Reviews

This CD is an out of print collectible! It is the original 1993 release. Still sealed.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The single best EP ever recorded, January 15, 2002

By 

drew m (maryland United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beaster (Audio CD)

Truth to tell, Beaster is more than a simple EP. It's really a six song album, and among one of the finest albums ever recorded. The four song set that takes up the middle portion of the album (bookcased by two swirling dreampop pieces) are the rawest, most naked songs Bob Mould, or anyone else for that matter, has ever recorded. Yet the music is stunningly beautiful and elegantly produced. Aching melodies are discernible from all the guitar feedback, and Mould's lyrics are his most pointed ever, crying out to deserting lovers, parents, and Jesus Christ himself. As with the best of Mould's music, there's a constant paradox: the lyrics are relentlessly bitter and bleak, but the music is hopeful by contrast, the salvation of the lyrics' despair. As an album, Beaster is a living, pulsating catharsis. It's impossible to turn off once it's been turned on, and on the best stereo systems it can be cranked up to become an incredible sonic force. I've never owned a better album. I've never tired of it (and I've only given one other album on here five stars). It is singularly brilliant. But, if you want to get down to the basics of it, the album flat out ROCKS harder than any album from the 90's. It's a towering achievement. Essential.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Self-performed Relationship Autopsy Kit, May 18, 2003

By 

Peter F. Stubbs (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beaster (Audio CD)

Beaster is the darker, angrier little brother to Sugar's brilliant debut album, Copper Blue. As filled with vitriol as anything Bob Mould has done since Zen Arcade-era Husker Du, Beaster is an altogether more complex can of worms. At first glance it seems to be concerned with religious anger (a not-uncommon theme for dark, angry albums) but the reality is that this cleaves close to the Mould songbook: it's about relationships. It uses religious imagery to cast roles within relationships in clearer light (ever felt betrayed by a kiss?).

It starts with the droning hypnotic "Come Around" and ends similarly with "Walking Away", but these are there more as endcaps to the four song centerpiece. Coming on the heels of "Come Around" "Tilted" is a barreling, pummeling brute of a song, arriving at high velocity and maintaining speed to its squalling, feedback-drenched conclusion. The noise turns to sludge as "Judas Cradle" lurches forth, with Mould screaming to open and bellowing throughout. Malcom Travis' pounding drumbeat announces the more-propulsive-but-still-thick "JC Auto". Mould's vocals continue to outstrip all-comers in the intensity department & the chords are thick. "Feeling Better" does indeed feel better, almost strutting with a loose confidence, maybe not joyous but certainly filled with exuberance.

Few bands or songwriters could say as much with the (seemingly obligatory) seventy minutes possible on a cd. This is all of 32 minutes. And, might I add, the tour supporting it was the most ungodly loud thing I've EVER heard. My ears rang for two weeks. I was still grinning when they stopped.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pain, August 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Beaster (Audio CD)

Ethereal, spiritual, brutal. Bob Mould leads the band through the tunnels of religious struggle with this visciously visceral mini-album. Sugar's finest moment, but barely heard (probably a result of Mould's shrewd marketing sense, knowing that the band was widely considered a power-pop group), it is a true Bob Mould album of grit and ugliness. The band is at its musical zenith here: the guitars are just dirty, Malcolm's drumming moves beyond the often plain patterns on "Copper Blue" and "F.U.E.L.," and Dave's bass-playing is just sprawling all over the album. The record opens and closes with heavenly songs of acceptance (the opener willingly, and the closer more out of necessity/hopelessness). But it's what's in between that's really interesting: angry and confused, as dislplayed in "Tilted," perhaps the band's best song overall (but that's a close one) and "JC Auto." Sugar's finest moment.