aybe I’ll paint myself into a corner here, but the problem with you indie boys is that even though you claim to like dance music these days, it’s the Rapture. And although you try to tell me that you like indie pop, you laud(ed) things like House of Love. Oh, I guess I can understand the past tense. The House of Love, as it stood in the late 80s had some very strange things about them, amid the tame guitar pop that undergirds their sound, namely: noise and psychedelia. The House of Love have grown up and left two of those three things behind. I’ll leave you to guess which two.

OK, that paragraph break was too much time. It’s the noise and psychedelia that’s gone from this first record from the group in more than a decade. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the group’s work on Creation Records. In fact, it’s nigh on legendary for expanding the sound of English version of indie that the Smiths had carefully begun mapping out. And, hell, the group is nigh on legendary for the best band break-up ever: singer Guy Chadwick threw guitarist Terry Bickers out the back of a tour bus.

There are good things. Chadwick and Bickers still have the eerie vocal harmony that often sends chill down your spine in certain instances. Just this side of fey, it always felt exactly right amid the noisier moments of the group’s original incarnation. Because they’re few and far between here, it’s hard to get a handle on whether it might actually still work. And yes, the title track (one wonders if it was this song that caused them to get back together—if so, I can understand the sentiment), is stellar House of Love material. It’s loud, has a nice solo, and even a nice mid-song breakdown (something sorely lacking in most of the material here).

But in the end, the press quotes sum it up for me all too well: the UK Observer’s review of the album claims that Days Run Away “updates the House of Love’s classic pop with both experience and freshness,” and guitarist Terry Bickers puts it more accurately in Uncut: “There are a lot of thirtysomethings…ready to relive their student days.” I couldn’t agree more—this is an album wholly dependent on having been there the first time. Their original music, however, isn’t.