BOB Mould doesn’t break the mould on Beauty & Ruin, and a good thing, too.

He is as ferocious as he was in Husker Du and his power trio Sugar and now that he he settled into another triumvirate with Jason Narducy and Jon Wurster, three is still the magic number for Bob.

In Mould tradition too, it is all over and done with in 36 minutes; rare brevity in an industry that favours quantity over quality, whereas punk and Seattle grunge both knew better.

“It’s a song cycle. A narrative. It’s nobody’s story but my own,” says Mould, who ran so fast from his past that he caught up with himself.

In doing so, he addresses how dealing with every year gets a little tougher in a series of visceral songs of loss and contemplation as he re-emerges after the death of his father in 2012.

Mould is in primal mode, lacerating bouncy pop melodies with hardcore guitar and last judgement lyrics: a combination as devastating as any he has ever delivered.