Beast

About Beast

Beast is the debut album by the Canadian band Beast. The album was made available internationally on iTunes on November 4, 2008. While it has been physically released in Canada, international releases have not been announced.

Article

Their self-titled debut album was very well received by critics, including The Globe and Mail, which suggested that Beast “stands an excellent chance of being the next big success story from the Montreal music scene”, and the Toronto Star, which called it “one of the most strikingly original and swaggeringly bad-ass Canadian albums to rear its head in recent memory”. allmusic said the album sounds "a little like Portishead fronted by Annie Lennox" and said that "even if the album isn't groundbreaking, the vocals are top-notch and the production is excellent, a perfect balance between sinister and poppy."

The first single from the album, "Mr. Hurricane", was released as a free Single of the Week on iTunes after the album's release.

In January 2011, the album was certified Gold by the CRIA for selling over 40,000 copies.

Contents

Personnel

Beast

Betty Bonifassi – vocals, songwriting

Jean-Phi Goncalves – all instruments, production

Additional musicians

Alex McMahon - piano (3), organ (6, 12), keyboards (9, 12), string arrangements (2)

Paul Hemmings - guitar (5, 6)

Mélanie Auclair - cello (2, 6, 10)

Guido del Fabbro - violin (2, 6, 10)

Cristobal Tapia de Veer - nylon guitar (7)

Tyrone Benskin - preacher, raps (9)

Yann Perreau, Antoine Gratton, Marie-Pierre Fournier, Caroline d'été, Emilie Laforest, Sébastion Nasra, Vance Payn, Frank Deweare - backing vocals (5)

Benoît Charest - songwriting (1)

Charles Mingus - original songwriting (12)

Simon Wilcox - songwriting

Credits

Beast - production, mixing, engineering

Pierre Girard - mixing

Sébastion Nasra - executive producer, artistic director

Kim Cooke - A&R consultant

Phillipe Normand - artwork supervisor

Marianne Larochelle - photography

Serge Landau - photography assistant

Leslie-Ann Thompson - hair and make-up

Karine Lamontagne (Bonifassi) and Eve Gravel (Goncalves) - stylists

Jensy White - graphic design

Adam Ayan - mastering

Article from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), where it is maintained by volunteer editors.

Notable quotes

“Oh, God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals to whom Thou gavest the earth in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to thee in song, has been a groan of travail.”
— Basil of Caesarea, in circa A.D. 375. Included in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (NPNF), edited by P. Schaff and Henry Wace (Edinburg: T. Clark, 1897), 2nd Series, Vol. 8. Quoted in Matthew Scully, [//books.google.it/books?id=SYY7AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT28 Dominion] (2002).
“Animals when in company walk in a proper and sensible manner, in single file, instead of sprawling all across the road and being of no use or support to each other in case of sudden trouble or danger.”
— Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (1908).
“Thus our duties to animals are indirectly duties to humanity.”
— Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Peter Heath, Cambridge University Press, 1997, Part II, p. 213.
“A prostitute was forgiven by Allah, because, passing by a panting dog near a well and seeing that the dog was about to die of thirst, she took off her shoe, and tying it with her head-cover she drew out some water for it. So, Allah forgave her because of that.”
— Muhammad, Bukhari 4:538.
“Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he, who is cruel to living creatures, cannot be a good man. Moreover, this compassion manifestly flows from the same source whence arise the virtues of justice and loving-kindness towards men.”
— Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Basis of Morality (1840), trans. Arthur Brodrick Bullock, London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1903, Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 223.
“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.”
— Alice Walker, Foreword to The Dreaded Comparison: Animal Slavery and Human Slavery by Marjorie Spiegel (New York: Mirror Books, 1996), p. 14.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.