The legacy of The Loft is continues to grow, no matter how little the band actually recorded in their prime. Collected here on Ghost Trains & Country Lanes: Studio, Stage & Sessions 1984-2015, out today via Cherry Red Records, is pretty much everything this seminal U.K. indie group recorded. Leader Pete Astor went on to The Weather Prophets and a successful solo career, but this is where things started for him, and where a certain strain of music was crafted, a strain that would come to define jangle-pop and everything good about that term and genre.
And for a genre defined as full of jangling guitars, there's a lot of snap in this band's best known song. "Up the Hill and Down The Slope" is a bit punchy, with "Your Door Shines Just Like Gold" marching forward with even more insistence. There's choppy guitars here, and Tom Verlaine-ish vocals from Pete Astor, with all that creating a then-unique mix. The morose "Why Does the Rain?" is more resigned, the tune nearly overtaking the players around it. For a newbie, the sound is almost like The Jesus & Mary Chain without any of the feedback. It's a tune that was later done by The Weather Prophets on Mayflower (1987), as pointed out by contributor Stan Cierlitsky, but this original version retains a uniquely sparse and downbeat charm. These first seven singles for Creation Records are where the legend of The Loft was born, and where their talents came to first fruit. The only misstep is an odd cover of Richard Hell's "Time", a track that they actually had more success with in live settings, as documnted here.
Of course, seven tracks is not enough to make a compilation and Ghost Trains & Country Lanes: Studio, Stage & Sessions 1984-2015 goes to great lengths to chronicle the band's formative years, offering up their sessions for radio, live sets, and the fruits of their recent reunions. Of the radio sessions, "On a Tuesday" is as good as any of their singles proper, with a real Tallulah-vibe anchoring this one to greatness. It's certainly the brightest cut amid the radio sessions here, one rivaled only by the excellent "Model Village" from their 2005 reunion. I agree with Stan Cierlitsky's opinion that it would be excellent if the band's reunion had extended to them recording this properly in the studio. As it is, this version is superb.
Disc Two of Ghost Trains & Country Lanes: Studio, Stage & Sessions 1984-2015 is given over to the numbers from The Loft from the sessions at The Living Room, some of which became highlights of the Alive in the Living Room (1984) compilation. Thankfully, as Stan notes, these selections, lots previously unreleased, sound a good deal better than they've ever sounded. Kudos to the folks at Cherry Red for putting so much care into this set. "The Nothing Box" and "Emily", among others, reveal shades here of the band's talents, and move The Loft further outside the restrictive jangle-pop label, and closer to the kind of thing The Jazz Butcher was putting out in the same era. There's a similarity in vocal styles between Astor and Pat Fish, as Stan notes, and that can only be read as a compliment. Disc Two concludes with tracks from the radio sessions done around the time of the band's 2015 reunion. Of these, the fantastic "I Can't Keep My Mind Off You", another Weather Prophets gem, as Stan reminded me, is a clear highlight. The band by this point sounded more comfortable than they'd ever been before, with even "Why Does the Rain" in this 2015 iteration taking on a lyrical grace that's surprisingly sunny. That one remains a seminal composition of Eighties Brit indie, even as "Up the Hill and Down The Slope" edges it out, the spry vibe of the classic then and in this 2015 performance lodging the cut firmly in the brain of any fan of this sort of thing. It had taken nearly 30 years, but The Loft finally sounded at ease with their own greatness, a greatness if not given its full chance back then at least properly documented here in 2021.
Thanks to site contributor Stan Cierlitsky for assistance with this review.
Ghost Trains & Country Lanes: Studio, Stage & Sessions 1984-2015 is out today via Cherry Red Records.
More details on The Loft via the Facebook page for the group. Background information is here.
[Photo: The Loft Facebook page]