Love & Hate

Personnel: Dave Crabtree (guitar).
Audio Remixer: Bernard Sumner.
Recording information: Berlin Studio, Blackpool (05/1985); Park Lane Studio, Preesall (05/1985); Strawberry Studios, Stockport (05/1985); Berlin Studio, Blackpool (05/1986); Park Lane Studio, Preesall (05/1986); Strawberry Studios, Stockport (05/1986); Berlin Studio, Blackpool (1984); Park Lane Studio, Preesall (1984); Strawberry Studios, Stockport (1984).
Photographer: Ian Tilton.
The fourth studio album by this ever-morphing Factory post-punk outfit would be their last for more than a decade, and was marred by trouble and disorganization even before its release. Section 25 had grown from their early days as a shadowy, Ian Curtis-produced goth punk act to a more electronic-leaning entity, then shrank from their five-piece form to include just-married couple Larry Cassidy and Jenny Ross for work on most of Love & Hate. The album was finished for two years before its 1988 release, leaving Section 25's career effectively dead on arrival at that point. Tragic, really, as Love & Hate's strangely primitive take on the burgeoning club sound translates to something almost as raw and punky as their earlier material, especially on the sterile electro of "Bad News Week" and the Satie-flavored instrumental experiments "Tim Lick My Knees" and "Shit Creek No Paddle." ~ Fred Thomas