Beauty & Ruin

“The fulcrum on which the album turns is the interplay between two songs: ‘The War’ and ‘Forgiveness.’ Mould’s sometimes turbulent, often complex relationship with his father was well documented in his autobiography. On ‘The War,’ Mould openly processes his father’s recent death, and when the song’s buried vocal emerges at the end of the song from the suffocating layers of dense guitarwork, the pain is left behind, concluding the album’s rumination on loss.”

The review that started it all: my take of Bob Mould’s Beauty & Ruin for Glide Magazine. In the days that followed writing this, I wrote a letter to my friend Walter Biggins about my nagging questions. His letter in response began a correspondence that turned into our book for 33 1/3 on Bob Mould’s Workbook.