Love is not a crime

I'm still kicking myself for missing/passing up the opportunity to catch one of Therapy?'s twentieth anniversary Troublegum shows two years ago, and yet the band have moved on to marking the release of another landmark record, its successor Infernal Love. Given the difficult circumstances in which it was created - Andy Cairns and Fyfe Ewing not speaking, Cairns regularly hoovering half of Columbia up his hooter, the whole band feeling intense record-label pressure to swiftly deliver a commercially successful follow-up, Britpop ruling the roost - and the critical mauling it received upon release, it's a wonder that Cairns was prepared to even speak to the Quietus' Kiran Acharya about the album, let alone decide to perform it in its entirety for the benefit of fans.

Infernal Love is no Troublegum - it was never going to be - and is a bit excessive, a bit pretentious, a bit silly, much like the frilly dress shirts the band were wearing in the photo shoot for the single 'Loose'. However, it undoubtely still has its merits - not least the beasts that are 'A Moment Of Clarity' and 'Me Vs You', the opening lines of 'Bad Mother' ("It's a beautiful day / But I don't see it that way") and the cello-and-vocals-only cover of Husker Du's 'Diane', which sounds on paper like a complete car crash but somehow, against all odds, proves to be anything but.