The House Of Love – A State Of Grace

I’ve been in House of Love’s corner for a very long time, even seen the boys live, which was always a great adventure to be sure. Sorry that I can’t say the same for the far too stylish State of Grace, which for all intent and purposes is a Guy Chadwick outing, devoid of the House of Love band you’ve come to know and love.

All and all, State of Grace is a cloudy affair, gone are the jangling guitars and lushness of other outings, especially when it comes to the Butterfly Album or even A Spy in the House of Love, it’s all just mundane mediocre and lackluster. That said, there are those who are going to suggest that Mr. Chadwick is some sort of maverick risk taker, to which I’d say, “No, he just thinks the band revolved around him, and that since it does, he could do it all better as a director … but he doesn’t.” Matter of fact, Guy himself goes on to say, “I made the album like I make other HOL records. I always do most of the guitar playing myself, I always arrange my own songs. I get what I can out of other people and whatever I get is a bonus,” leaving me to simply say, “I told you so.”

The package is housed in a gatefold, with the industrial landscape being sort of prophetic. The music is delivered by way of two ten inch vinyl discs, a bit of a waste to my way of thinking, as they’re not audiophile, with the vinyl source material being all digital, meaning the compact disc will sound better, and getting up to flip these pieces of wax is about as laborious as the music pressed to them.

Review by Jenell Kesler

Never understand why any band would release an album on 10" vinyl. Kinda spoils the collection. Any time a 10" album has been eventually released on 12" vinyl, I go for that in a heartbeat (Kid A, Era Vulgaris etc)