Th' Faith Healers-Lido (1992)

 

Artist: Th' Faith Healers

Title: Lido

This Time/A Word of Advice/Hippy Hole/Don't Jones Me/Reptile Smile/Moona-Ina-Joona/Love Song/Mother Sky/It's Easy Being You/Spin 1/2

Label: Elektra/Too Pure

Format: CD 

Cat # 9 61425-2

Year of Release: 1992

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1992

Listed Condition: VG+/not graded (by accident, a generic VG+)

Sell Date: 4/25/22

Sell Price: $4.49

Discogs Last Sold: 3/18/22 NM/NM $14.95

Low: $3.55

Median: $4.99

Average: $6.61

High:$14.95

Current low price:$15.99

Current Number on Sale at Discogs:4

Have/Want: 290/33

Where Sold: Chicago, IL

Time it took to sell: 11 years

Where and When Bought: used 1992 at Sounds $7.99 sticker on it

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: B+

Sad To See It Go: No

This came out first on Too Pure as an import around the brief time I was doing summer air at WHRB's Record Hospital in 1992. Boston was so awash in quality rock radio that Harvard's nightly program could make a show of the left of the left of center on a nightly basis.  They still exist today whereas all the other nightly programs at other stations I was on have been eliminated or radically altered.   People played Th' Faith Healers at WHRB, but that was a band on the more commercial end of their spectrum, whereas at WMBR (MIT), WZBC (Boston College) or WERS (Emerson, where I came from) it would have been baseline addition to local "college rock" or "indie rock" or "alternative rock" programming in 1992.  It wouldn't have made the commercial alternative cut at WFNX and certainly not the more mainstream rock of WBCN.  Perhaps a specialty show off-peak hours they'd sneak in.  Stereolab was more commercially friendly and had a larger fanbase, but that is not this.

Lido made enough of an impression on me to buy a "new promo" copy at Sounds on St. Marks later that year, shortly after I moved to NYC.  This was one of those bands that really didn't need major label distribution, but the post-Nirvana indie gold rush was on and Too Pure got swept up into the Warner/Elektra/Asylum axis along with label mates Stereolab who apparently sold enough to have a run.  Listening today was pleasant enough.  The track I remember playing on air was "Hippy Hole" probably because it was the harshest and fastest song on the record.  The opener "This Time" has a bit of skronk in it's general tunefulness.

A louder, electronicless Stereolab come to mind listening to the album as a, not a shock given drummer Joe Dilworth plays on early Stereolab records. You also get a Can cover, a short version of "Mother Sky."  There's also a shoegaze/Creation Records vibe, as well as a twee pop one.

Generally pleasant UK indie rock, Elektra licensing notwithstanding.