The House of Love (1988 album)
| The House of Love | ||||
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| Studio album by The House of Love | ||||
| Released | June 1988 | |||
| Genre | Alternative rock, dream pop | |||
| Length | 32:03 | |||
| Label | Creation | |||
| Producer | The House of Love | |||
| The House of Love chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| The Guardian | |
| NME |  |
The House of Love is the eponymous debut album by the British alternative rock band The House of Love. Released in June 1988 by Creation Records, the album was a critical success.
The album was recorded following the departure member of founder member Andrea Heukamp, who had played on the band's early singles. Her only appearance on the album was playing guitar and singing backing vocals on the song "Christine" (the first song which group leader Guy Chadwick had written for The House of Love and had inspired the blueprint for the band's original lineup and style). Although the split was amicable, Chadwick would later comment "Losing Andrea Heukamp was a massive, massive blow for me: I loved her voice and I loved her playing, she was easily as important as Pete (Evans), Terry (Bickers) or Chris (Groothuizen)."
Despite the loss of Heukamp, the remaining four members continued with the recording of the debut album. The only single which would make it onto the album was "Christine": surprisingly, neither of the band's first two singles ("Shine On" and "Real Animal") were included. Instead the band drew on other songs which Chadwick had built up. These included "Touch Me", which was the first song that Chadwick had ever written (and which, in 2007, remained his favourite), "Man to Child" (which stemmed from his anxieties about "feeling old at the age of 26") and "Road" (written about his experiences and feelings of alienation on the squatting scene following his move to London from the Midlands). "Love in a Car" was based on "an affair which went on too long" while "Hope" and "Sulphur" drew on Chadwick's failed first marriage (he would describe the songs as "the only positive thing that came out of it.")
Although the recording sessions for the album were completed in just over a week, the mixing sessions - allegedly fuelled by copious use of LSD - proved more problematic, with producer Pat Collier dealing with the final mix after disagreements within the band. The album was preceded by the release of "Christine" as a single in May 1988, which reached No. 1 in the independent charts. The album itself was released later in May. As with the band's previous early singles compilation, the album lacked a title and featured only the band's name on the record sleeve: consequently the album became known simply as The House of Love. A subsequent non-album single, "Destroy The Heart", was eventually voted single of the year in John Peel's Festive Fifty and was added to the end of the next pressing of The House of Love (although it was removed from the 2007 reissue of the album).
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