Suburban Rock 'n' Roll
| Suburban Rock 'n' Roll | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||
| Studio album by Space | ||||
| Released | 8 March 2004 | |||
| Recorded | June–July 2002 | |||
| Studio | Highfield Street Studios, Liverpool | |||
| Genre | Alternative rock, neo-psychedelia | |||
| Length | 40:15 | |||
| Label | RandM, Pinnacle | |||
| Producer | Stephen Lironi | |||
| Space chronology | ||||
|
||||
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
  link
|
| Leeds Music Scene |
link
|
Suburban Rock 'n' Roll is the third (fourth if you count the unreleased Love You More than Football) studio album by Space, released on 8 March 2004. It is their first proper album release since 1998's Tin Planet. The tracks "Zombies", "Suburban Rock 'N' Roll" and "20 Million Miles from Earth" were released as singles, all of them failing to reach top 40.
For this album Space sought to diverge from the polished, commercial-friendly sound that inhabited Tin Planet and Love You More than Football, to a style more reminiscent of their debut Spiders. Tommy Scott's lyrical themes also shifted in direction, moving away from the character-driven lyrics of old to more personal reflections, with songs dealing with death, living in suburbia, crime and surveillance. The band also reunited with Spiders' producer Stephen Lironi, who is credited as songwriter of a few tracks. Suburban Rock 'N' Roll is the first Space album with no techno/electronic instrumentals from Franny Griffiths, as the band wanted the album to be more song-oriented.
The album was not a great success, as public interest had waned in the band almost six years previously, and promotion for the record was almost non-existent. Despite the failure of both album and singles, the album remains a favourite amongst fans, with even former band member Jamie Murphy dubbing it the "best Space album".
After touring and promotional commitments of their second album Tin Planet concluded in late 1998, Space returned to the studio to commence work on their third album, tentatively titled Love You More than Football. However, Gut Records objected to Edwyn Collins being chosen as producer, and forced the band to rework the material several times, delaying its release for over two years. A taster single from the album, "Diary of a Wimp", was released, but peaked outside the top 40, their first single to do so since "Neighbourhood".
The long hiatus between albums and lack of substantial material began affecting the band's ability to play live, as guitarist/vocalist Jamie Murphy recalls: "When it was 3rd album time, I think we’d been away from it all for about a year and we had a tour while we had nothing out. We were doing 2000 capacity venues and there’d only be 400 people there. So we were going onstage every night going, “What the fuck’s going on here? What have we done wrong?”.
...
Wikipedia