Sugar - Copper Blue Review

The music and influence of the pioneering Minneapolis hardcore band Hüsker Dü was investigated brilliantly in Michael Azerrad’s 2001 book on the 80s alternative underground, Our Band Could Be Your Life. But for Bob Mould, Hüsker Dü was his life – and going on the stories, tales of financial penury, addiction and interminable band squabbling, it was a pretty miserable existence
His work with Sugar – the power trio he formed in 1992, four years after Hüsker Dü’s demise – feel like an attempt to wash away the angst of the post-punk years, to try on a sunny expression and see how it felt. And while Sugar were themselves short-lived, their music, particularly that collected on excellent debut album Copper Blue, sounded like salvation....full text How ironic that after years fronting the hugely influential but desperately overlooked Hüsker Dü, Bob Mould's first project with new band Sugar, 1992's Copper Blue, would become the most commercially successful project of his career. Of course, it was released just as the seeds sown by his former band were bearing bountiful fruits in the post-Nirvana alternative nation, which provided ample explanation for its phenomenal success. But Sugar were well deserving of their success, regardless of time and place. A more aggressive, contemporary guitar attack aside, stunning power punk masterpieces like "The Act We Act," "The Slim," and "Fortune Teller" bear all of the vintage Mould musical traits: tell-tale lyrics, great hooks, and snappy melodies. It's all underpinned by that unexplainable, chilling tension between innocent beauty and dark melancholy that fans came to expect from Mould, and topped by his somewhat nasal, almost timid vocal harmonies. Other highlights include the '60s-style "If I Can't Change Your Mind," the loud, beautiful guitars of "Man on the Moon" and "Helpless," and the tongue-in-cheek Pixies tribute "A Good Idea."...full text Husker Dü were an influential Eighties band that fed into the Nirvana-driven grunge explosion at the close of the decade, ironically just as Husker Dü folded. Bob Mould, chief pioneer in that band, formed Sugar some five years later, when Seattle had launched the genre into the Nineties. ‘Copper Blue’ was the band’s first album and remains iconic in that it promoted something subtler than the Seattle sound, with accessible melodies. High critical acclaim followed, although commercial success still remained dampened. Remastered and supplemented it has received a contemporary injection and doesn’t feel out of place in today’s scene with that Mould influence shining through....full text Sugar plays what could be called old-school alternative rock-hooky tunes nearly hidden by a sandblast of punky guitars. But the band does it just about better than anybody else — and for a good reason: Its singer and guitarist, former Husker Du front man Bob Mould, is one of the godfathers of the underground rock scene. Copper Blue, Mould's first album with his brand-new band, finds him confidently returning to Du turf after two divergent solo albums. Bruteforce attacks like ''Fortune Teller'' and ''A Good Idea'' sound like Husker revisited, and, throughout the album, Mould shows he hasn't forgotten how to write gripping melodies (nor, alas, occasionally overwrought lyrics). Mould may still be acting as if it were 1985 and R.E.M. were a cult band, but in this case, nostalgia is a virtue....full text