I've told this story before but I'll tell it again.
In 1990, I worked at the University of Maryland Record Co-Op. I got a plain blue label promo cassette of Submarine Bells by The Chills a few months before it came out. Already a fan, I was thrilled that the band was now going to be on a subsidiary of Warner Brothers and get the full major label push. I played the album and loved it, but I remember that within minutes of hearing lead single "Heavenly Pop Hit", I feared the band was going to be huge in America. I thought that somehow The Chills would be as big as R.E.M. and would lose their magic in a similar way.
No worries there. Submarine Bells came out and the only copies I sold were to folks in bands like Velocity Girl, then starting out on Slumberland Records a few miles away in College Park, Maryland. Despite my best efforts in the Co-Op, the album never took off there, not even on the level of The House of Love or The Sundays. I think the reaction was the same in other parts of the USA, with the record doing better in college radio markets, obviously. The Chills were smart, maybe too smart, and they'd just released their best, brightest (and darkest) record in Submarine Bells. They'd repeat this masterpiece about two years later with the even denser and more complex Soft Bomb.
Now, after years of being out-of-print, those two albums are coming out again thanks to Fire Records. Remastered, the duo will be out later this year but pre-orders are up now. I'd urge you get a copy, or a second copy, as soon as you can. These albums, particularly Submarine Bells, contain some of my very favorite music of the last few decades.
Submarine Bells and Soft Bomb will be out soon via Fire Records.
[Photo: Fire Records]