The Burden of Mules | |
Type: | studio |
Artist: | The Wolfgang Press |
Cover: | The Burden of Mules cover.jpg |
Released: | 1 August 1983 |
Recorded: | May 1982 – June 1983 |
Genre: | Post-punk |
Label: | 4AD |
Producer: | Mark Cox, Michael Allen |
Next Title: | Standing Up Straight |
Next Year: | 1986 |
The Burden of Mules is the debut studio album by English post-punk band The Wolfgang Press. It was released on 1 August 1983, through record label 4AD.
AllMusic's review was negative, calling the album "impenetrable" and some tracks "so morose and vehement as to verge on self-parody". Trouser Press called it "dark and cacophonous; an angry, intense slab of post-punk gloom that is best left to its own (de)vices."[1]
Ernest Simpson of Treble was more positive, stating, "As the times changed, so did their [Wolfgang Press'] sound, but The Burden of Mules still stands as not only the beginnings of a great band, but as a definition of a specific time and place in music history. They trod the dark side of post-punk with a gloom and doom shared by many of their contemporaries, but it is their penchant for theatrics that makes this album stand out."[2]