| Masque | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | The Mission |
| Cover: | Mission_masque.jpg |
| Released: | June 22, 1992 |
| Length: | 51:36 |
| Label: | Mercury |
| Prev Title: | Grains of Sand |
| Prev Year: | 1990 |
| Next Title: | "No Snow, No Show" for the Eskimo |
| Next Year: | 1993 |
Masque is the fourth regular studio album by the Mission which was released in June 1992 on the Vertigo sub-label of Mercury Records.
The album included a number of outside collaborators, including Martin Allcock, Anthony Thistlethwaite and Miles Hunt.
Peaking at #23 in the UK albums chart,[1] Masque failed to repeat the commercial success of the Mission's previous two official studio albums and marked the beginning of the Mission's decline in popularity; it was also the band's last album to achieve a UK top 40 position, until the release of Another Fall from Grace in September 2016.[2] AllMusic suggests that the band's change in musical direction was to blame for the album's weak reception, writing that Masque "doesn't sound like the Mission, but rather like a band trying to find its direction." PopMatters discussed the album's reception in a review of the band's subsequent Aura album, writing, "Some argue that Hussey started to wander off the path with Neverland‘s predecessor, Masque, but this writer ain’t one of ’em. Masque features co-writing credits from the Wonder Stuff’s Miles Hunt, as well as the Waterboys’ Anthony Thistlethwaite; it’s the least pretentious and most stylistically-varied album of the band’s career. Plus, it features a fair amount of fiddle, which is rarely a bad thing."[3]
Except where noted, music by Adams, Brown, Hussey
All words by Hussey