Love and Rockets [Expanded] [Remaster]

Performer: Love and Rockets
Engineer: John Fryer; Bob Carlson
Producer: John Fryer; Love & Rockets
Distributor: Alternative Dis. Alliance

Notes: Disc One of the 2002 remastered edition of LOVE AND ROCKETS includes the original album plus four unreleased tracks. Disc Two includes the SWING EP, a bonus radio interview and additional live tracks. The bleep heard during the first track is not record company censorship, it was done intentionally by the band. Love And Rockets: Daniel Ash (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, saxophone, keyboards, bass); David J (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, harmonica, bass); Kevin Haskins (piano, keyboards, vibraphone, drums, percussion, samples). Additional personnel includes: John Fryer (string synthesizer); Lorna Wright, Sylvia Mason James (background vocals). Principally recorded at Blackwing Studio, London, England in 1989. Personnel: David J (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, harmonica, tuba, keyboards, synthesizer, background vocals); Daniel Ash (vocals, guitar, electric guitar, saxophone, keyboards); Bill Thorp (violin); Penny Thompson (viola); Josie Abbott (cello); Kevin Haskins (piano, keyboards, vibraphone, marimba, drums, percussion, sampler); John Fryer (string synthesizer); Lorna Wright, Sylvia Mason James, Ruby James (background vocals). Recording information: Blackwing Studio, London, England (??/??/1988-07/05/1989); Far Heath Studios, Northamptonshire (??/??/1988-07/05/1989); KCRW, National Public Radio, Santa Monica, CA (??/??/1988-07/05/1989). Photographer: Jeff Katz. LOVE AND ROCKETS proves that the lowest common denominator still offers the quickest path to the American public's hearts and wallets. "So Alive" and "Motorcycle" are so unbearably catchy that even Anglophobes found themselves buying ten copies of this album. After years of low-key success, Love and Rockets certainly deserved a little pocket money. But the hits are actually the weaker numbers on this strong set. Don't overlook the crunchy and loopy "**** (Jungle Law), the Woody Guthrie-on-acid blues stomp of "Bound for Hell," or the Love and Rockets-by-numbers "No Big Deal." The band brings in strings for "Rock and Roll Babylon," a tribute of sorts to dearly departed rock heroes, while Daniel Ash blows saxophone to demonstrate his versatility as an artiste. LOVE AND ROCKETS is a little confusing, but it works. After this album, the band went on a five-year hiatus. As the band's breakthrough record in the U.S., riding high on the left-field success of the slinky T. Rex homage "So Alive," this album still divides the band's fans to the present. Charges of sell-out are incredibly curious, because aside from "So Alive," absolutely nothing here sounds like it would have gotten anywhere on the airwaves. While Ash and David J were clearly dividing their songwriting efforts, resulting in a rather schizophrenic album, what they were writing and performing were some of the best songs of their collected careers. David J gets to indulge rock & roll and blues traditionalism on a number of his tracks, beginning with the opening "**** (Jungle Law)," a radical reworking of the old "Signifying Monkey" standard with compressed production and an almost industrial beat from Haskins. Another redone oldie is "Bound for Hell," a tale of the Devil driving a train to down below; David J runs his vocals through crackly distortion, playing harmonica while Ash plays a huge, thrashy guitar line. Perhaps his best number is his most atypical: "Rock and Roll Babylon," a barbed study of fame with Ash's sax and a string quartet fleshing out the sound beautifully. Ash's songs do some roots revisiting as well, in their own ways. "No Big Deal" and especially "Motorcycle" show that the man's been listening to some Jesus and Mary Chain, but his wonderful vocal purr marks them as his own songs. An unexpected addition to everything is "The Purest Blue," a radical reworking of Earth Sun Moon's "Waiting for the Flood" which leaves almost nothing of the original. [A two-disc version of Love and Rockets, released in 2002, added "Motorcycle" remixes, several B-sides, and the contents of a radio show to the original program.] ~ Ned Raggett

CMJ (1/5/04, p.26) - Ranked #3 in CMJ's "Top 20 Most-Played Albums of 1989"

Many a sad goth mourned the loss of Bauhaus in the early 1980s, but guitarist Daniel Ash and the Haskins brothers carried on without Peter Murphy, first in the short-lived Tones on Tail, and then, in 1985, with Love and Rockets. More pop-leaning than their earlier bands, they were still considered part of the burgeoning "alternative rock" movement that was gathering steam thanks to new mainstream outlets. A pair of charting hits in the U.S. and U.K. resulted in unprecedented fame for Ash and Co. After a five-year break, the band was dropped from their label, but returned in the mid '90s and released three more albums that featured a new electronic/dance bent. They quietly broke up in 1999.

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