Bauhaus: Mask [BEGGARS BANQUET]

Why you'll love it

This Beggars Banquet edition comes in a gatefold jacket under Daniel Ash's cover drawing. Mask is in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, and Trouser Press called it the band's finest achievement.

This edition

• Gatefold jacket
• Cover drawing by Daniel Ash

About the album

Bauhaus left 4AD after their debut because the band was growing faster than the label could keep up, and Mask was their first album for Beggars Banquet. Peter Murphy said they loved making each single totally different from the last, and the whole album works that way, pushing the stark sound of In the Flat Field into keyboards, acoustic guitar, funk rhythms and saxophone. The band had already put out two singles on the new label, "Kick in the Eye" and "The Passion of Lovers."

"The Passion of Lovers" glides on keys and acoustic guitar and reached No. 56 in the UK, while "Kick in the Eye" gets the dancefloor moving and climbed to No. 29 on the US club chart. "Dancing" and "In Fear of Fear" bring the sax and the funk, "Hollow Hills" creeps along in the shadows, and the title song closes the record in grand, eerie style. Guitarist Daniel Ash drew the cover; the band produced it themselves.

AllMusic's Ned Raggett called it arguably even better than their almost flawless debut. The title-song video was shot in a derelict Victorian shoe factory in Northampton, the sort of location scouting that gives goth its good name.

Also at Kops: more Bauhaus on vinyl · browse Industrial & Goth

Tracklist

Listen

On Beggars Banquet (cat# BBQLP 2061), a reissue of the 1981 album.