Lovejoy - .​.​.​And It's Love! (2024)

Almost 25 years since their debut release, Lovejoy return with …And It’s Love! Their first new material in 20 years, a split release between Spinout Nuggets and Shelflife Records.

Although releasing their debut in 2000, Dick Preece had formed Lovejoy in around 1998 after meeting up with fellow Brighton resident Keith Girdler, who was in Blueboy at the time. Preece was encouraged by the vocalist and Paul Stewart, Blueboy’s guitarist. After working on a few tracks and mailing them out to labels they signed and released a handful of singles and three albums, Songs In The Key Of…; Who Want’s To Be A Millionaire and Everybody Hates… on Santa Barbara’s Matinee Recordings. Lovejoy then took an extended sabbatical from 2007, following the devastating loss of Girdler to cancer, to whom Preece has dedicated this album, his long-time friend, confidante and collaborator.

Preece only returned to music in 2022, interestingly reaching back into the past to guide his future. Back in 2001, Lovejoy released the single Plays The Hits Of Biff Bang Pow! The first things recorded by Preece back in the studio was another of Alan McGee’s Biff Bang Pow! tracks, Miss You, along with the Ed Ball track, When You Lose Your Lover You Learn To Lose, as a test to see if he still had the ability to record/ play and sing after so many years out of it all.

Preece explains, “I sent Alan and Ed the songs as a courtesy before I’d decided where to release them and they were both so positive I then pushed on with recording the original songs. Alan said my version of Miss You is amazing and better than his version, very lovely of him but I’m not sure I’d agree!”

Thankfully they were both positive and offered encouragement and endorsement. As the album demonstrates, the years have been kind to Dick Preece’s songwriting sensibilities, and his reputation for delivering sophisticated indie music remains intact. Through the lushly produced tracks, beautifully bound together by the central themes of love, loss and human connections, the album invites the listener to immerse themselves in Lovejoy’s world. A concept album, the songs weave and meld together into a narrative soundscape of tender moments of love and loss that sound both reassuringly familiar and yet totally modern.

Take the opening Regency Square which features long-time Lovejoy co-vocalist Ally Board along with multi-instrumentalist Keris Howard. Its dreamlike quality easily sits alongside recent releases by artists such as The Shop Window and Keeley suggesting Preece has now found his time and their music is actually contemporary, after once describing the band as ‘painfully out of step and wilfully irrelevant’

Preece says, “This album explores how love’s presence or its absence defines every meaningful aspect of our lives. That we struggle sometimes to define what love is, in the many forms it takes, is neither here nor there. The big moments, from beginning to end are shaped by love of one kind or another. This is our take on some of those moments”.

Clearly, the stars are aligning at a time that Blueboy are also returning with new material and live gigs and there are a number of ‘Sarah’ related acts back in vogue as a result of the great work done by Skepwax Records keeping the Bristol label alive and following Jane Duffus’ book on the label. Not that Lovejoy were signed to Sarah Records, but they are most definitely ‘Sarah Records adjacent’.

Of all the tracks on …And It’s Love! it’s the title track, at almost the midpoint, is the outlier in style with more of a clubby/dance feel compared to the rich instrumentation however it’s the closing coupling of Tender Moments, which ventures into Ride/shoegaze territory and Be The Light which will have you wanting to flip over the stunning white vinyl (or re-press play) and start on the journey all over again.