release date: Oct. 1981
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,12]
producer: Bauhaus
label: Beggars Banquet - nationailty: England, UK
Track highlights: 2. "The Passion of Lovers" (4,5 / 5) - 4. "Dancing" - 5. "Hollow Hills" (4 / 5) - 6. "Kick in the Eye" - 7. "In Fear of Fear" - 10. "Mask" (4,5 / 5)
2nd studio album by Bauhaus following one year after In the Flat Field is once again a release entirely produced by the band. They may appear to have changed record label but 4AD, who released the debut album as well as some of the band's early eps and singles, was a sublabel to Beggars Banquet as the mother company's 'testing ground' for upcoming artists, and as the debut had been met by critical acclaim, Bauhaus was moved to the mother company.
Mask is yet another strong and intense release of dark and sinister sounding gothic rock. What felt like a reminiscence of Joy Division on the debut is here completely gone, and the band has taken a rather original theatrical or: melodramatic step into darkness and depravity, and in some ways threads on paths that Marilyn Manson should much later investigate. This is an even stronger and more intense collection of songs than is heard on In the Flat Field, and it stands as one of the absolute best albums of gothic rock. The abum is the only Bauhaus album to be enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". The track "Passion of Lovers" was the first song I ever listened to by the band. I recorded it on tape from a radio programme, and I was absolutely fascinated by its intensity - demonstrating an originality in tension and atmosphere, which sounds fresh - even from a modern perspective.
The front cover of the album is a drawing by Daniel Ash.
Highly recommendable.
[ allmusic.com, Record Collector, Drowned in Sound 4 / 5 stars ]
