Gig review: Sugar at Leeds Irish Centre
Three-and-a-half decades on from their heyday, Bob Mould’s reformed trifecta still deliver their scuzz-fuzz power pop with ribcage-rattling heft and melodic deftness.
Nostalgia has never been the currency of choice for Bob Mould. The former Hüsker Dü punk hero has long appeared ambivalent in retracing his old footsteps, every inch the American hardcore iconoclast in his ways.
But the Malone native has always had a soft spot for Sugar, the brief-lived trio he christened with bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcom Travis in the booth of a Waffle House restaurant three-and-a-half decades ago, spinning scuzz-fuzz heartbreak into power-pop gold and a string of influential hits for UK label Creation in the pre-Britpop years.
Now the trifecta have embarked upon an unlikely reunion, only months after their guitarist-singer tore up the Brudenell Social Club across town on a solo-electric jaunt. Whereas that show gave the frontman ample space to draw from a storied catalogue, this near-fat-free sprint through a specific era of his songcraft favours maximum thrills over minimal frills; a 90-minute, two-dozen set that blisters the plasterboard of the Leeds Irish Centre with its sheer sonic heft.
Mould’s penchant for ribcage-rattling sound levels remains defiantly preserved in his mid-sixties, readily apparent against the backdrop of a rhythm section built on taut economy. But there is an ageless quality to these early-nineties tunes that belies the miles on the clock; a one-two-three Copper Blue salvo of The Act We Act, A Good Idea and Changes may well carry the hallmarks of their post-grunge inception, but feel fascinatingly possessed of 21st century vigour too.
Come Around, their alt-rock stab at skyscraper balladry, might not carry off the movie-montage energy that it does on record, but nevertheless soars and wails; two new songs, House of Dead Memories and Long Live Love, further tease the notion of a second life for these old friends yet.
Barbe takes the occasional lead delivery himself, while Travis keeps matters tight and supple at the back. But it is to Mould that the eyes so often return, an avuncular beefcake of a man whose melodic deftness underpins the sticky crunch time and again, his instrument churning across JC Auto and through to the sublime finale of enduring favourite If I Can’t Change Your Mind, just as slyly effervescent as it was all those moons ago.
Sugar, it appears, are as spikily sweet as they ever were. Such joy.