After the demise of the Minneapolis punk band Husker Du, lead
\nvocalist\/guitarist Bob Mould went out and proved that he was a
\nserious musician with his two solo albums – never the mind he had
\nstarted to prove this near the end of Husker Du’s career.<\/p>\n
With the formation of his power trio Sugar, it almost seemed
\nlike Mould wanted to merge his new style with the power he gave up
\nwith Husker Du. Their debut,
\nCopper Blue<\/i>, has some very good moments, but like many first
\nattempts, it falls flat more often than not.<\/p>\n
Punk this is not – this is more power pop than anything. The
\nfirst song, “The Act We Act,” is proof of this. The solid drum work
\nof Malcolm Travis and subtle bass work of David Barbe seem to be
\nperfect foils for the angry, jangling guitar of Mould.<\/p>\n
But the tide turns with “A Good Idea,” a song which doesn’t seem
\nto jell very well. The chorus grows annoying quickly, and is not
\none of Mould’s better moments as a songwriter.<\/p>\n
The first “single” of note, “Helpless,” is one of the band’s
\nbest songs – a catchy refrain and vocals in perfect harmony.
\nThis<\/i> sounds like what Mould was trying to accomplish after
\nHusker Du.<\/p>\n
The success continues with songs like “Hoover Dam,” “Man On The
\nMoon,” and the alternative radio hit “If I Can’t Change Your Mind”
\n– the album’s shining jewel. I have listened to that song more
\ntimes than I’d like to admit when I was down.<\/p>\n
But a successful album is made up of more than four songs, and
\nCopper Blue<\/i> is just not able to maintain the level of
\nperfection these tracks set up. They’re not bad songs, but tracks
\nlike “Changes” and “The Slim” just fail to go anywhere.<\/p>\n
This may be unfair criticism for a band that had not been
\ntogether for a long time prior to the recording of
\nCopper Blue<\/i>, but these are no newcomers to the recording
\nstudio. Mould knows what makes a good song, and he misses the mark
\non many of these – though he does come close.<\/p>\n
\nCopper Blue<\/i> has some very solid moments, but in the end, it
\nis a record that could have benefited from another coat of paint
\nand some more work on the songwriting. There is enough material
\nthat justifies picking this one up – but approach it with
\ncaution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5672],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-35548","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-sugar","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35548"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35548"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}