Sugar - Beaster

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Free Music Notes for Beaster

Free Music Review: A face-smashing, square-battering-fist of an album
Hit: 5 Stars

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.

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