Dragging The Past For Pearls (III)

The House of Love - Audience With The Mind (1993)

I'm sure I've never read of anyone being overly positive about this album. Even the sleevenotes in their Best Of compilation put the boot in. I think I'm right in saying it was deleted soon after release: I only picked up a copy by sheer chance when browsing in a second hand record store in a small town near Guildford in 1999.

By the time it was made, the House of Love's ship had long since sailed. The massive hype surrounding their second album (following the debut on Creation Records) had ensured it was a success commercially and got the band on Top of the Pops when Shine On went top 20. But it was a false dawn, as first the Manchester scene and then grunge came and took away their thunder. Mercurial guitarist Terry Bickers was long gone when follow-up album Babe Rainbow stalled big time and by 1993, even Bickers' replacement Simon Walker had elected to follow other options.

With career dead and media profile lower than a crawlin' kingsnake, it seemed a good a time as any to make a somewhat brilliant album, which Audience With The Mind is - for my money, it's the best since their debut. It's also, in a way, singer/songwriter Guy Chadwick's 'guitar' album: playing all the parts himself (except on Shining On) he shows he's got a fair amount of his own chops. He also gives his best, in my opinion, vocal performance on the touching acoustic number All Night Long.

It also, for the main part, sounds fantastic: the House of Love made their name when Bickers was on board for being able to create some great guitar sounds and they're right on form here, straight from the opening Sweet Anatomy. Matters only really stumble when bassist Chris Groothuizen takes lead vocal duties on Erosion: a fine song, but the New Zealander doesn't have the presence of Chadwick in fronting a song. There's also a wonderful sense of the epic in songs like Portrait In Atlanta and the closing You've Got To Feel, which would have been a great way to finish a career.

Which was not to be the case. 2005 saw Bickers and Chadwick kiss and make up to reunite with drummer Pete Evans (shame Groothuizen wasn't involved) to produce Days Run Away, a fine album. I saw them on the subsequent tour and was struck by a) what a handsome devil Bickers looked and b) how many brilliant songs they had in their set. There wasn't any from Audience With The Mind (indeed, I don't recall many, if any, songs that Bickers hadn't been involved in first time round), which was a shame. It's an unjustly maligned part of the band's career and a quick check shows second hand copies around for a decent price if any fans need to complete their HoL collection.