Sugar "File Under: Easy Listening" (1994)

File Under: Easy Listening (aka FUEL)
release date: Sep. 6, 1994
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,92]
producer: Bob Mould
label: Rykodisc - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 1. "Gift" (4 / 5) - 2. "Company Book" - 3. "Your Favorite Thing" (4 / 5) (video) - 4. "What You Want It to Be" (4 / 5) - 5. "Gee Angel" (video) - 7. "Can't Help You Anymore" - 9. "Believe What You're Saying" (4 / 5) (video)

2nd and final full-length studio album by Sugar following 1½ years after the ep Beaster (Apr. '93) and two full years after Copper Blue (Sep. 1992). F.U.E.L. follows nicely as a natural follow-up to the debut but what's more important: it seems to have more in common with Black Sheets of Rain (1990) and perhaps comes even closer to the style of Bob Mould (1996) - both solo albums by Mould, which in a sense shows you that he did what he did, regardless the presence of other band members, and perhaps he may have felt the same confining restraints in Sugar as he experienced while member of Hüsker Dü. At the bottom line, I guess he understood that he might just do it all on his own, as he did when continuing with his third solo album Bob Mould (1996) following his project of Sugar.

A track like "Believe What You're Saying" is a semi-acoustic melodic ballad that bonds perfectly with his best songs on Workbook - again: a solo release. Compared to Copper Blue this still reflects the power pop that bonds to the late Hüsker Dü albums but it's also clear that it's a harder collection of songs - perhaps rebounding the ugliness of the Seattle grunge rock that Mould's former band inspired.

The debut by Sugar is found on several lists enlisting the best of alternativ rock of the early 90s, but in my mind, this is the best of the band's two full-length albums. It's a highly recommended album, although, it may not quite match Mould's very best solo album - the successor, simply titled Bob Mould (1996).

Highly recommended.

[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5, Q Magazine, Select 4 / 5 stars ]

Sugar "Beaster" (1993) (ep)

Beaster, ep
release date: Apr. 6, 1993
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,58]
producer: Bob Mould, Lou Giordano
label: Rykodisc - nationality: USA

Tracklist: 1. "Come Around" - 2. "Tilted" (4 / 5) - 3. "Judas Cradle" - 4. "JC Auto" - 5. "Feeling Better" (4 / 5) - 6. "Walking Away"

2nd album by Sugar is a 6 track ep following only 6 months after the debut Copper Blue (Sep. 1992), and like that this is also produced by Mould and Lou Giordano.
This is the most angry, intense, tight, and noise rock styled release of the three Sugar albums. I have always found that this particular Sugar album is closely linked to the darker second solo album by Mould, Black Sheets of Rain from 1990. And then 1½ years later this ep was followed by the final album F.U.E.L. (1994).

Sugar "Copper Blue" (1992)

Copper Blue [debut]
release date: Sep. 4, 1992
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,88]
producer: Bob Mould, Lou Giordano
label: Rykodisc / Creation - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 1. "The Act We Act" (4 / 5) - 2. "A Good Idea" (4 / 5) - 3. "Changes" - 4. "Helpless" - 5. "Hoover Dam" - 7. "If I Can't Change Your Mind" (5 / 5) (video) (live on WFUV) - 9. "Slick" - 10. "Man on the Moon"

Studio debut album by the Bob Mould-led project Sugar, in early '92. In a sense it's kind of hard to musically pin down strong differences from e.g. Mould's second album Black Sheets of Rain (1990), which is very much to say the music he already made, but for the short period of time Sugar came to exist, the style was always alt. rock, indie pop, power pop with much less focus on the singer / songwriter and bond to folk rock elements you may attribute Mould's previous solo releases. All ten tracks is written between 1990-92 by Mould himself. Only two full albums and one ep were released under the name of Sugar; hence the second album, also known as F.U.E.L (1994), signals the end of this short-lived trio, but that only meant a new start for front figure Bob Mould.

Copper Blue is Mould's best-selling album to date and it generally harvested positive reviews. The album topped the music magazine NME's list "Album of the Year", and it's the second of just two featuring Bob Mould (Warehouse: Songs and Stories by Hüsker Dü being the first) to be enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".

Personally, I find it a difficult but not impossible choice to pick the best of the two full-length Sugar albums, as they both have individual strengths, but I simply prefer the '94 album. This is the first by Sugar, and it comes out as something quite fresh to demonstrate the bond between Hüsker Dü / Bob Mould and the whole grunge rock movement. On Candy Apple Grey (1986) and Warehouse: Songs and Stories Mould and Grant Hart's former band paved the way for a whole string of new American bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Mudhoney and many other, who all became bigger names but owns everything to a band named Hüsker Dü.

Copper Blue is nicely produced, it's strict and it contains a bunch of strong melodic rock songs fueled by Mould's enigmatic vocal and distorted guitar.

[ allmusic.com, NME 4,5 / 5, Rolling Stone 4 / 5 stars ]