Sugar

RIOT FEST LATE NIGHT: SUGARat METRO $61 Adv. / $66 Day of / 18+ / Doors: 6PM / Show: 7PM Having already placed his indelible mark on modern music with Hsker D and solo album Workbook, Bob Mould enlisted bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis leading to the formation of SUGAR, who made their live debut in early 1992 at Athens, GAs famed 40 Watt Club. Named by NME as its 1992 Album of the Year, SUGARs now-classic debut album, Copper Blue, immediately proved a sensation, earning worldwide acclaim and landmark status for the melodic strength and intensely cathartic popcraft of songs like A Good Idea, Helpless, and the alternative rock radio hit and MTV favorite, If I Cant Change Your Mind. With the wind at their back, SUGAR unleashed Beaster in 1993, making a momentous debut at #4 on Billboards Heatseekers chart. Though recorded during the same sessions that yielded Copper Blue, the six-song mini-album evinced a more visceral energy and dark melancholy than its predecessor, highlighted by such pulverising expressions of sacrilegious fury as Judas Cradle and JC Auto. 1994s second full-length LP, File Under: Easy Listening once again made an explosive arrival, this time landing in the upper reaches of the overall Billboard 200. The album saw SUGAR pushing boundaries yet again on songs like the Americana-tinged Believe What Youre Saying and the incendiary Gee Angel, tackling a wider range of musical approaches without sacrificing their signature intensity and unrestrained power. Despite their successes, SUGAR called it a day following a Japanese tour in early 1995. A series of live recordings, reissues, and anthologies served to magnify the bands legacy over the three decades since, confirming SUGAR as incontrovertible masters of high-volume guitar-fuelled rock for the ages.