Full-length debut record by the Leeds-based band.
Chris Hooson, the singer and songwriter, in his own words: "I had spent 6 weeks in 1997 wanting to die. I had been through a lot of trauma with people close to me dying and also my mother had cancer and looked like she might not make it, I was writing material which reflected my pain at that time. Originally I wanted to call the record "bereavement and loss" as all the songs are about bereavement or loss. The record company were not happy with it as they thought it would sound too depressing so we changed it but now I wish that I had left it as it was. We recorded sporadically in many different places. I would be at Richards house and we would get an idea for a song or as in the case with December 8th 1980 I just felt that I wanted to record it so we put some mikes on the kitchen table and recorded as we felt like it. The ambient bird noises were just there in fact we cannot recall hearing them at the time. Often we rented an old Church and recorded bits and pieces in there too to capture noises and ambience, we tried to make the record as natural as we could. But this is the way it went along until we had finished all the songs. I still find it hard to listen to and play some of the songs as they represent such a difficult time for me emotionally. We wanted to make the recording as natural as possible so only used vintage amps and valve equipment all through the recording process.”
"...trying to pigeonhole them is not easy. You can tick off vague soundalikes but not influences. You can namecheck the two Nicks, Cave and Drake, elements of a resurgent Mercury Rev, a bit of Sparklehorse and Tindersticks, you could even lump them in with the current alt-country rise. Nothing, though, quite hits the mark." (bbm)