House of Fire

(Universal Warning)
by Craig Regala

The art work (which I love, by adrianeschramm.com) reminds me of the last Spacemen Three record, a great one. It contains some of the same languid, stroll/drug haze hum herein. The disc had overload simmer hum, where this disc spins back to classicist late ’60s psyche/flower power stuff as interpolated by many ’80s fops who landed in the Rhino Brit Box (a four CD set of sissy-boom flutter that’s pretty goddamn great). Cleanly sung and chimingly wrought, House of Fire works the territory between shoegaze and Brit-pop before those impulses filled for an annulment (leaving cool-teen Swervedriver negotiating between hopped-up dad and tranced-out mom). Tunes manifest slowly but surely, melodies ooze out and I bet it’s great live.

Word association: “House” as in the band The House of Love, “Fire” as in the record label Fire. iPod’m with The Nazz, Echo and the Bunnymen, Ride, Sad Lovers and Giants, The Rain Parade, Stone Roses, Byrds, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and Love.
(www.universalwarningrecords.com)