release date: Mar. 25, 2016
format: cd (MRG580)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,94]
producer: Bob Mould
label: Merge Records - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "Voices in My Head" - 3. "Hold On" - 4. "You Say You" (4 / 5) (live) - 5. "Losing Sleep" - 6. "Pray for Rain" - 7. "Lucifer and God" (4 / 5) - 9. "Hands Are Tied" (4 / 5) - 11. "Losing Time" - 12. "Monument"
11th studio album by Bob Mould is a self-produced Mould vintage and his third consecutive album on a more than fine level in his silver age. After a rather long period of time with little artistic glow from the late 1990s - to be more precise following his 1998 album The Last Dog and Pony Show to his 'first' comeback album Silver Age in 2012, the likewise potent Beauty & Ruin from 2014, Patch the Sky is everything you'd expect from the man right after his 1990s adventures but the first decade in the new millennium was not on par with his first golden period or his three most recent solo releases.
This is like the fulfilment of an artistic circle, which reaches back to Black Sheets of Rain (1990). Bob returns to a well-known formula without simply repeating himself. The music is energetic bursts of harmonies set ablaze with electricity.
'A grower... mind you' would be a suitable label to those who would reject it as superficial noise and / or an album with Mould on repeat. In my mind this even surpasses his 2014 album, which makes it nothing less than his second best solo album ever, so just give it a spin or two more, and see if you get it.
This is one the absolute best of the year and naturally highly recommendable material!
[ allmusic.com, Rolling Stone, Mojo 4 / 5 stars ]
2016 Favourite releases: 1. Tindersticks The Waiting Room - 2. Ukendt Kunstner Den anden side - 3. Bob Mould Patch the Sky
