On this version of the LP you will find the 10 tracks that make up the original album "Mask". These are the first 10 tracks. These songs are all brilliant, but standouts (in my opinion) are Hair of the Dog, the Passion Of Lovers, the Man With the X-ray Eyes, the chilling Hollow Hills and title track Mask.

There are 5 bonus tracks on this CD, however, these tracks are nothing compared to the first 10. These tracks come from various singles and EPs released around the same time (ish) as Mask.
Track 14 is comical, and fun to listen to, and track 15 is alright, but i prefer to have the CD set so it only plays the first 10 and then repeats back to track 1.

If you have just downloaded Bela Lugosi Is Dead and have decided it's time to buy your first Bauhaus CD, make Mask it. Buying the actual albums is a much better alternaltive than buying Crackle (the greatest hits CD) or the single collections. Collections like that may be of interest to you, but they do not provide the whallop that a full length Bauhaus CD will give you.

And if you are prepared to buy a couple of albums, put "Pornography" by The Cure and "The Downward Spiral" by Nine Inch Nails into your shopping cart right now too.


Accessible is a relative term...thank goodness   August 29, 2003
 6 out of 7 found this review helpful

A lot of reviews refer to Mask as Bauhaus's most "accessible" or "mainstream" album. And if you're looking at Bauhaus for the first time, hoping to buy an album that will give you better old-school Goth creds, maybe that will turn you off. But you have to keep in mind that this is, in fact, Bauhaus we're talking about. Mask is their most accessible and mainstream album in kind of the same way that I might say that Duran Duran's original album is their most Goth. It's kinda true in its way...but not really.

Try to imagine for just a fraction of a second a world in which you would hear the actual song "Mask" on the radio, and you'll see what I mean. Not gonna happen. It's much too full of eldritch noises and dark intellectual musing to get any airplay.

"Mask" is a personal favorite of mine; but if you're looking for the names that get bandied around more, check out "Passion of Lovers" and that pleasantly hostile paean to spiritual growth, "Kick in the Eye." Important to song cross-referencing, a favored pastime for Bauhaus and for Peter Murphy solo, is "The Man with X-Ray Eyes," which is the lyrical basis for the later "Departure."


An Interesting Progression   April 5, 2005
 4 out of 7 found this review helpful

After making a cornerstone album in gothic music ("In The Flat Field") Bauhaus apparently decided that it would be a good idea to make a dance-friendly version of said record. Mask only really holds true to what you may consider true Bauhaus form in such tracks as "The Passion of Lovers" "Hollow Hills" and "Mask", the rest of this album is consistent (mostly) of spooky-pop tracks that may make you question your existence if you're of the mascara-wearing-all-black-dressing-death-rock-loving mold (and not in the usually sad bastard questioning of existence kind of way either). If you get the CD it has a bonus Ska song! Neat, huh?
I almost like this album better than it's predecessor if only for the simple fact that it shows that Bauhaus were capable of changing style on the listener without straying too far from genre in aesthetic. This holds true my belief that there is a "Bauhaus for Every Situation"(TM) behold:
You've got "In The Flat Field" if you're looking for some textbook goth/post punk fun. "Mask" is the album for when you're looking for fun, and, although you meant to pull out your Madness album and accidentally grabbed this instead, it can still serve the same purpose (uh..kind of..).
In conclusion, "Mask" is good. It's different and that's what makes it great. Although "Mask" isn't going to make your average purist goth-wanker very happy, just remember that no one cares what purist goth-wankers think anyway.

Key Tracks: "Passion of Lovers", "Of Lillies and Remains"