Chapterhouse

Five rail-thin longhairs from Reading, England, Chapterhouse was first linked to the space rock likes of Spacemen 3 and Loop -- the connection with the former being inextricable during the band's youngest months, thanks in part to vocal support from Sonic Boom. Early on, the two bands also shared the same management and gigged together. As the years transpired, Chapterhouse would eventually be identified as a shoegaze band, thrown in with the so-called "Scene That Celebrates Itself," as alternately championed and ridiculed by the U.K. press. Until their unfortunate slip into an overambitious, ill-fitting, increasingly dance-reliant sound with unconvincing gospel references, Chapterhouse could switch from bliss to dread in an instant, with steady downpours of guitars and buried vocals that were either phased into haunting drones or ecstatic rushes of melodic noise.

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