Beaster Rising

Here’s an absolute monster of a record, Beaster by Sugar.

I think it is only right and proper that I admit to missing this 1993 release at the time and that I was only hipped to it by Dave at work a couple of years ago; thanks Dave. Yes, even I , the all-powerful and all-knowing 1537 can very occasionally err.

Basically, having listened to it three times already this evening I have to say that Beaster is a faultless release.

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Released in the wake of Copper Blue‘s startling success* and comprised of tracks recorded at the same sessions, it would be reasonable to assume that Beaster might be a bit of an odds and sods miscellany, in the manner of bands pushed for ‘product’ to cash in while they are nice and toasty. It fucking isn’t.

I only do these things to freak you out
I never wanted you to doubt me

Beaster is darker, meaner and just far more relentless than anything Sugar had recorded prior, or would record afterwards. It is the sound of flailing, failing and falling, at times a desperate howl for redemption and/or sacrifice. It is a perfect exemplar of that lesser spotted artefact of the ancients, the mini-LP.

Opener ‘Come Around’ is based on an acoustic chassis, Bob Mould singing the song’s title like a reassuring mantra, while guitar figures lick ever higher. It’s the warmest, most comfortable track on Beaster; it means you no harm.

‘Tilted’ is full throttle barrelling melodic noise rock, the closest Sugar got to Mr Mould’s previous band. I love how dense and cleverly produced the band’s sound is**, everything clear/everything slanted/everything heaped up high. The touching lyrics deal with doubt, romantic misunderstanding and regrets.

It’s a bit of a theme hereabouts but next track ‘Judas Cradle’ is even better. The formidable rhythm section of David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis build a thrumming lattice work supporting Mould’s guitar work. Untidy and spiky as the belief systems and mores the song rails against, it suddenly pulls into beautiful tuneful clarity as Mould and Barbe sing the lines ‘Have you seen the Judas cradle‘. People don’t praise Mould’s singing enough in my view, his voice is a great tool well used.

Flipping the disc we get ‘JC Auto’. Major chord guitar takes off for the horizon on this tale of, even more, regrets and a healthy dose of self-loathing and rancour. The way discord butts up against the ever swelling righteous melodies is a thing to be cherished even as the song ends with the ultimate spurned lover’s gambit ‘You’ll be sorry when I’m gone’.

We touch upon happy pop grunge, briefly on ‘Feeling Better’ via a trick or two stolen back from Nirvana, via some wonderfully parpy keyboards and great bass playing from Barbe The lightness of the tune is utterly at variance with the song’s message of a prolonged and wretched failure at reconciliation, with a parent? a lover?

Beaster closes with the decidedly churched-up ‘Walking Away’. Although in the context of all that has gone before the refrain of ‘walking away back to you’ does not sound like a lasting gambit, just a prelude to a spin through all that self-doubt and negativity again.

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What marks Beaster out for me, a literal graduate of the grunge era, is the sheer commitment that resonates through every cut here. Bob Mould never sounds like he sings anything lightly, his lyrics seem wrung out of him. The whole band follow suit though, everything locked in tight and damn the consequences.

I love everything about this record: from the artwork – all that paint and rope and significantly dusty crosses, to the sparklingly effective production, to the songs themselves, to the fact that it was named for and released at Easter, to the perfect length of the beast at 30:51.

Buy it, or I will tell the Beaster bunny on you.

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My copy of Beaster is a 1537-come-lately 2020 reissue on clear vinyl, which my sources state sounds better than the original did. There is something wonderful about clear vinyl, somebody did tell me that it is the best colour for clarity as it lacks the pigment used in other colours (even black?), but I have absolutely no idea if this is true, or any conception of the necessary physics/chemistry/astrology/crypto zoology involved to form an opinion on it.

1255 Down.

*an album I haven’t owned since my tapes hit landfill back in ’97. Although I bloody love my 12″ of A Good Idea, by far the best Pixies/not-Pixies track ever recorded.

**by Bob Mould and Lou Giordano.