FOLK ROOTS - July 2000

HOUSE Water Under The Bridge Road Goes On Forever. RGF/HSECD045

The triumph of unfettered enthusiasm over all commercial sense. House used to perform every Monday night at a pub in Guildford frequented by RGF boss John Tobler. Their career not being the highest flying, they rated a few tracks on a local sampler before packing it in. Time and good fortune brought the three founders back in contact and Road Goes On stuck the offer of an album under their noses. So. some twenty three or four years late, here is - pardon the phrase - House music. It's most definitely anchored in the late '70s and sounds very much like The Strawbs, Tony Backhurst being a more rounded, less maniacal Dave Cousins.
The songs are typical soft focus affairs concerning love, good times, missed opportunity and more than a deal of reflection. Photograph the honourable exception is an acute tale of life lost in Ulster's troubles, Amsterdam Rain a '70s rites of passage which anyone with long hair, a backpack and a memory can relate to. All this of course begs the question of just how many local champions made decent music but never got beyond bar gigs? Probably loads, start your list now....

House certainly never won the fight but Water Under The Bridge proves their music's gone the distance.

Simon Jones