Album Review: The House of Love - A State of Grace (2022)

Craig Stephen waited such a long time for the latest House of Love album to arrive he started to fear it never would …

It had been a long time since House of Love released She Paints Words in Red (2013), but in that intervening period gig-goers were teased with some new material that they rightly expected to form a new studio album. It would have been the third LP featuring Terry Bickers since he returned in the early 2000s following his acrimonious departure in 1989. But in 2021 Bickers was off again. This time there wasn’t the friction or enmity of the initial split, with a band statement blaming the pandemic for Guy Chadwick’s decision as he prepared for rescheduled dates in the United States. In a later interview the frontman suggested Bickers declined his invitation as he was loyal to Matt Jury and Pete Evans who had been sacked from the band because Chadwick didn’t want to work with them anymore. It seemed that the new album was in jeopardy.

 But, then, Chadwick announced a new line-up with ex-Idlewild man Keith Osborne on lead guitar, Harry Osborne on bass, and Hugo Degenhardt on drums. Degenhardt had previously worked with, ahem, Rod Stewart and Robbie Williams. These guns for hire would appear with Chadwick on the UK tour of autumn 2022 and the US tour soon after.

The album with the new line-up is a radical departure from the comeback album Days Run Away (2005) and its morose follow-up She Paints Words in Red. I’m actually being quite diplomatic about the latter, it was a stinker, very pastoral, placid and far removed from previous House of Love albums. Chadwick was keen to return to the sound of the band in its earlier days.

State of Grace was recorded in Hastings on England’s south coast and among the guest musicians are John Pilka, who was in Chadwick’s first significant band, Kingdoms, in the mid-80s. The cover is somewhat grainy and industrial and it looks suspiciously like a goth album with its font and monochrome style.

If Chadwick’s intention was to return to the band’s past sound he has largely achieved that, especially on the guitar-driven single ‘Clouds’ which is a call to someone to “Get your head outta the clouds”, a refrain that is repeated ad nauseum for the final minute and 40 seconds in majestical rock’n’roll style. The accompanying video features a greying Chadwick walking around a seaside town including along a pier and through a games arcade. There’s little in the way of politics or diatribes on the way of the modern world on the dozen tracks – that’s just not Chadwick’s style – and love and how it spins a web around our hearts and minds are instead front of house.

Any suggestion this might be a solo album is augmented by the resurrection of a song from Chadwick’s brief turn as a solo artist in the late 1990s. ‘Laughter and Honey’ was a beautiful, mainly acoustic B-side; as the renamed ‘Into the Laughter’ it is a full minute shorter but has electric guitars and a full band. That clearly is the intention: to turn a very much one-man effort into a team endeavour. And it certainly benefits from four pairs of hands working in unison with Keith Osborne’s guitar playing very much to the fore. Another highlight is the album opener ‘Sweet Loser’ which begins with harmonica playing which is superseded by a drone riff that builds into something quite stunning.

‘Melody Rose’ is quite grungy. If there is a past reference in this song, it is to the critically panned Audience With the Mind (1993), an album that probably should have been re-recorded or released as an EP. Nevertheless, like that particular work, I have come to love this in its own way. The bassline parties with the drums in a manner I never thought possible.

It is certainly a ubiquitous album, and there’s a couple of numbers in ‘Queen of Song’ and ‘In My Mind’ that suggest Chadwick has been listening to authentic Americana music. The former has touches of blues; the latter a tinge of country music. Curiously, Chadwick’s languid vocals on ‘In My Mind’ remind me of Nigel Blackwell of Half Man Half Biscuit. Without the deadpan humour.

State of Grace is a varied album that takes the listener on a trip across the Atlantic. Yes, it certainly sounds like peak House of Love from 1987 to 1993 but there’s traces of more recent work at times. It has the sound of four people gelling fairly quickly, but also of one man in charge and make no mistake this is a Guy Chadwick-fuelled project. How this record would have eventuated if Terry Bickers and his two mates were on board is impossible to determine. I suspect it would have been different in good and bad ways. But we have an album I think the House of Love can be proud of.

Album Review: Half Man Half Biscuit - The Voltarol Years (2022)

 Craig Stephen on the prolific Half Man Half Biscuit …

Half Man Half Biscuit never stop. Four decades on and the albums keep a-coming. Just as I wonder if Nigel Blackwell has dredged the well of humour dry, the world churns out more merde for him to get his teeth into. As it were.

The Biscuits have been around since 1985 when the world was first introduced to their love of minutiae on the seminal Back in the DHSS album, a period piece of observant, wry tracks that cast an eye over everything from unemployment to table football to the galling awfulness of children’s TV presenters.

Every two to three years the Biscuits relaunch with a new album, and The Voltarol Years is their 15^th studio album (on top of numerous EPs and a few compilations). The previous 14 masterpieces were all released on Probe Plus but with that cult label’s closure through its owner’s retirement, they’ve released this on R M Qualtrough, a name so anti-rock’n’roll I’ll assume it’s their own set up. That change may explain the gap of four years since No-one Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin' Hedge Cut.

 The Voltarol Years contains the usual cutting edge sarcasm and satire, railing against the worst elements of society: football fans who aren’t really football fans, middle class aioli-consuming moaning minnies, pedants, grumpy online chess players, C-list celebrities and what have you. If there were ever a political statement in a Biscuits track it would be about the bickering at parish council meetings over poorly-devised pavements.

This is all delivered in a manner that defies musical norms, none of which is more evident than on ‘Grafting Haddock In The George’, where, mid song, Blackwell deviates into a monologue about Martin, one of those people who want to be at the centre of everything and who like the sound of their own voice. As he does so the band pares back to a single bassline: 

“He was at Knowsley Safari Park one day where he saw a monkey with a banana in one hand and a tin-opener in the other, and he shouted over: ‘Hey, you don’t need the tin-opener for that!’ To which the monkey replied: ‘It’s for the custard, dickhead!’ …”

In the 1980s and much of the 90s the Biscuits could drop in obscure references knowing that fans would need to ask their mates what it meant or remain befuddled. Now, all you need do is search Google. So what exactly is Urbex or buskins of mottled cordovan? Who is Anthony Power or Chicory Tip? And where exactly is Haverfordwest and why is it named so? Do I even care? That, perhaps, is the entire point.

‘Rogation Sunday’, meanwhile, reveals how a man finds a curious note from his other half that brings a double-whammy of bad news:

“I came downstairs and found your note / The greater knapweed near the mugwort by the buckthorn tree is dying / P.S. Yes, I have left you”

The preamble to all this merriment and mirth ‘I’m Getting Buried in the Morning’, is the tale of a murderer about to meet his maker, and who wonders how he’ll be remembered (not fondly obviously). Our anti-hero cheers that: “Yeah, I’m getting frazzled in the morning/ So get me to the chair on time,” sung in the manner of that ol’ cockney classic ‘Get Me To The Church On Time’.

The music is a varied mash of standard rock and indie-pop, sometimes grating, often enthralling, as on ‘Awkward Sean’, a personal favourite due to the breezy pace it takes. The narrator wonders what has happened to his old pal and tries to find out from others who knew him. Some say he died a long time ago, some say he’s alive in a small town in Pembrokeshire, west Wales (hello Haverfordwest!). We discover that Sean was a little bit different: while his mates liked the flamboyant footballers such as Best, Pele and Cruyff he was an admirer of more functional German players. In the pubs: “We would play pool/ He would arrange beer mats into a tower.” 

Amongst the jollity and scornful mocking, The Voltarol Years does contain some bleakness, as on ‘Big Man Upfront’ where another ratbag hits his dog cos he’s “hard as nails” and crashes his car but survives – “I cursed the airbag when I heard” bemoans our storyteller.

The Voltarol Years won’t be picked up by global radio, trend on Spotify or be listed in the Top 75 Albums of the Year by Mojo magazine. They don’t even try to go beyond their fanbase nowadays, and never really did – after all they eschewed a TV appearance that could’ve boosted their profile in the 80s to instead see local side Tranmere Rovers. But, in age of increasing cultural tediousness and AI-generated music, bands such as Half Man Half Biscuit are needed more than ever. “What side of the indie war were you on Grandad? I was on the side of Tess of the Dormobiles, lad”.

Album Review: Vietnam - This Quiet Room (2022)

There’s probably a fairly decent grassroots biopic or screenplay lurking within the minutiae of the Vietnam backstory.

From the band’s punky activist Wainuiomata roots in 1980, to live gigging in small suburban halls, to studio sessions which yielded one solitary EP, all the way through to a couple of high profile television appearances, Vietnam’s flame burned brightly if all-too briefly.

When the band broke up in 1985 they were destined to become a mere footnote in the storied history of Wellington’s 1980s post-punk scene. Until 2016, that is, when the eponymous EP was picked up, expanded, and re-released by Spanish label, BFE. A reunion gig followed in early 2017, which led to fresh momentum and new work. That meant recording sessions in locations as culturally diverse as Sydney and Levin, with the result being the album that eventually became This Quiet Room.

Released in early 2022, and preceded by punchy advance single 'What Have I Done?', the album is an absorbing collection of tracks conceived both during the band’s original incarnation, and those of a more recent vintage; one part throwback to a bygone era, and one part excursion into state of the art post-punk, circa 2022. There’s a strong (old) new wave feel, there’s power pop, some jangle, and no little amount of social commentary.

There’s also a very cool cover of Wire’s 'Kidney Bingos', which threatens to be the best thing here. But that would perhaps be an injustice to the remaining 10 tracks on offer. Listen out too for 'Leon', a brief interlude featuring original drummer Leon Reedijk, who passed away in 2017.

Band originals Shane Bradbrook (vocals) and Adrian Workman (bass, synths, vocals) are on top form throughout, and their presence is key to pulling all constituent parts into a very cohesive whole. This Quiet Room is a compelling comeback from a long lost band, a triumph over adversity even, and if some bright spark ever does script that biopic, it’ll just as likely be the first-ever Vietnam movie with a happy ending.

This review was originally published by NZ Musician (link here).