The House of Love- S/T "Butterfly Album" (1990) MP3 & FLAC

"In a garden in the house of love, sitting lonely on a plastic chair, sun is cruel when he hides away. I need a sister, I'll just stay."

A lush, stunning, overwrought masterpiece of an album, The House of Love's second consecutive self-titled LP (the first long-player born of their ill-fated relationship with Fontana Records) stands as one of the great indie releases of the nineties, even though its status as the missing link between Post-Punk and Brit-Pop has all but assured it of a slow descent into relative obscurity. Legend has it that the recording sessions for the album were a nightmare, as the band was not only quickly fragmenting, but was also saddled with an artistically unsympathetic producer. Despite all this, House of Love is both cohesive and dynamic. The album opens with "Hannah," a song built around some lovely echoing guitar parts, which are cut through by Guy Chadwick's measured vocals until the chorus, where things are kicked up a sonic notch- overall, an outstandingly constructed song. The next track, a re-recording of the pre-album single "Shine On," is just as good; though the lyrics are obscure, melodically, this is one of The House of Love's most memorable songs. The final part of the opening trilogy, "Beatles and the Stones," is a shimmering, gorgeous ballad, whose theme is more about isolation than sixties nostalgia. Criminally out of print, this is, nevertheless, an album not to be missed.

The House of Love- 1986-1988: The Creation Recordings (2001) MP3 & FLAC

"I sold you a favour in the dark. Got a salt dream and a red scar. Weak, bending in the wind, two good words and white skin."

Posed precariously between the death of The Smiths (and Post-Punk itself for that matter) and the rise of Brit-Pop in the early nineties, The House of Love were strangely untethered to their own time and place. As a result, though they were easily the equal of most of their Post-Punk influences, Guy Chadwick & co. were destined to fall through the cracks of commercial success. What remained after the band self-destructed in the mid-nineties due to drug abuse and record company bullshit was a waiting-to-be-rediscovered discography saturated with sublime guitar-pop, not quite Post-Punk, not quite Shoegaze, not quite Brit-Pop, but somehow transcending them all. The Creation Recordings focuses on what many believe to be the band's most fertile period, when lead guitarist Terry Bickers was still involved in the proceedings. These are gorgeous, haunting pop songs that manage to look backward and forward simultaneously, which is why, unlike many of their better known peers, The House of Love invoke a sense of timelessness with their music.