Customer Reviews

Beaster

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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)

This cd, in my opinon is the height of Sugar. The ferocity of the material is literally jaw-dropping. Don't get me wrong the melodic nature of Mould shines through on every track but tracks 2-5 are relentless in their aggression and energy. Threw this on a couple weeks ago for the first time in about 4 years and it was a state of nirvana. In a way this reminds me of New Day Rising in terms of the the power on display. The production is the same sound as Copper Blue and its just amazing that this was the material they released before the uninspired F.U.E.L cd. In the end it's Bob Mould and while not everything he creates works, its usually miles above what currently passes for hard rock/power pop these days. If you can find Beaster, add it to your collection

This is one of those albums that you just have to listen to from start to finish. This is six songs that run you through almost every possible emotion. The climax of the cd, the relentless "JC Auto," which seems to be about becoming your own christ figure, features one of the most cathartic choruses Bob Mould has ever penned. Definitely not for the faint at heart. A Must for any Mould/Husker fan or anyone who needs there demons exorcised.

**Beaster** follows hot on the heels of the seminal **Copper Blue**, Sugar's debut effort and (by popular account) one of the most charming, intelligent and unabashedly *smug* pop albums ever recorded.

But while **Copper Blue** confidently shopped an irresistible saucerful of candied, pure pop confection -- serving up a host of sprightly songs that were occasionally peppered with gut-wrenching, twisted or otherwise ironic themes -- **Beaster** opts instead for an all-out, blunt-fisted battering.

The result is an album that possesses the not inconsiderable capacity to startle even the most jaded of listeners. From the majestic (if not slightly lulling) opening chords of "Come Around," **Beaster's** frontal assault begins to take shape, assuming both pitch and moment in the uber-intense "Tilted," stepping-up a notch (and growing still more urgent) in the sadistic, relentless "Judas Cradle," and ultimately climaxing in the simply awesome "JC Auto."

It's to **Beaster's** credit that it doesn't end on a note of ultimate despair, however. The album's singular catastasis (and it's a transitioning not unlike that of tragic catastasis, I think) is articulated by virtue of the slowly-coming-down "Feeling Better," and is suggested more strongly in the frank acceptance of the mantra-like "Walking Away."

And although **Beaster's** thematic suggests both affirmation and acceptance, it ultimately achieves neither by means of a hollow or otherwise tricky deus-ex-machina. By album's end, Sugar frontman Bob Mould holds the range of **Beaster's** explored emotional and philosophical content squarely in his gaze -- and refrains from blinking.

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.

Sugar's "Beaster" is one intense album. The first and final songs are pleasant instrumentals with pleasantly repeated choruses. Sandwiched between is a lot of rage. And like the tunes on the masterful Copper Blue, "Beaster" contains a blaze of melody that lurks behind every driving guitar chord and hopeless sentence.

"Tilted" bolts out of the gate like a hurricane, full of fury and loud, loud guitars. In the midst, Bob Mould's vocals sound oddly soothing within the storm, despite his hurt, spiteful lyrics. The well-meaning but overbearing preacher's voice between "Tilted" and "Judas Cradle" seems like a crisis of faith for Mould, and the prayerful tone adds an eerie element to an already intensely themed EP.

The intensity doesn't let up after "Judas Cradle." What's more, the songs get even better. In "JC Auto," Mould begins, "I'm on a holiday/wasting my time away" (sounding anything BUT relaxed and on holiday). "JC Auto" is full of chugging riffs and guitar chords that are so bountiful it's almost dizzying, while the lyrics are the angriest I've ever heard Mould sound. "Feeling Better" is the EP's best song, almost achingly heartfelt during the portion when Mould pleads over and over, "I hope you're feeling better." This is true emotion, and it's sad that more people didn't discover Sugar. Mould clings to music like salvation, and he raged on this short EP like no other album in his career. It's CDs like "Beaster" that caused Mould to proclaim he was going strictly acoustic due to poor hearing. And though he may never get back to this sort of rock and roll that resides in the stratosphere, "Beaster" still blows me away every time I spin it.

Beaster receives what it projects; dazed, feedback- hangover reviews...It will, however, become a classic; an "underground" classic. If you like Bob's angry, macho, brooding,inverted romantisicm, nothing compares. Makes NIN seem like Yani.