Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Soundhead
2. Straight To Your Heart
3. Forever
4. Heavens End
5. Too Real To Feel
6. Fix To Fall
7. Head On
8. Carry Me

Disc 2:

1. Rocket USA
2. Soundhead (1st Mix)
3. Head On (1st Mix)
4. Soundhead (Peel BBC Live Version)
5. Straight To Your Heart (Peel BBC Live Version)
6. Rocket USA (Peel BBC Live Version)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28346 in Music
• Released on: 2008-11-10
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .15 pounds

CD Description
Heavens end is the extremely overdue reissue of the long out of print album by British band, LOOP. Remastered from the original analogue sources, this album is released as a double discs and housed in a mini vinyl style card sleeve, reproducing the original artwork. The album in its entirety on CD 1, with the bonus tracks (including relevant Peel session material from the time) on CD 2, the bonus material will be available on CD formats only. Remastered by Robert Hampson at SoundMasters with Kevin Metlcalfe, Heavens End originall came out on the HEAD label in 1987, they recorded their first Peel session that year (on the bonus disc) and the album draws heavily from the likes of the Velvets, Stooges, and the MC5.

Customer Reviews

at LAST
oh my god finally this album is coming out and I feel like I'm a loop virgin anyway cos I didn't get to the revolution until this year - or last I don't remember - anyhow, this music if you don't know is like a maelstrom of guitars, constantly whirling in and out of the mix, such scathing acid timbres and cutting like a knife. There isn't any sordid sqwauking piercing your ears like maybe Sonic Youth or Comets on Fire - both of whom I'm huge fans of - but it hits the groove so finely that it sounds as if it's just about to tip over. The vocals, in the original mix, were sometime immersed under the velvet sea of punk noise but then you could hear him breathing fire in his hiss and it's so breathtaking. Played with repetitive precision, it's hypnotic and highly danceable. Originally was mastered quite softly, so you could register the burn when it went mental, but now we're gonna hear why they were called one of the loudest bands in the world man! Yeah! This is stuff of legend! Can't wait

Guitar nirvana...heavens end in more than name.
Some time in 1987 I wandered into my local vinyl emporium in Halifax( "Groove" records,long gone alas) and started flicking through the new releases. I pulled out Loop's Heavens End which I had heard about . The shop owner said "Ohh the drummer ( I think it was the drummer) of that band used to come in here a lot until he went to Uni and moved away...nice lad... though they're not really my cup of tea" Hardly the greatest sales pitch but I bought the album and it's still one of my favourites from that period 87-90 when so many brilliant guitar albums were released that it renders the paucity of today even more vivid.
I still have the vinyl version but felt compelled top buy the CD re-issue complete with an extra CD with different mixes of three tacks and three songs from a Peel session. Fusing heavily percussion backed drone guitar mantras, with wriggling psychedelic blasts laid over the top Loop utilised elements of Suicide,MC5,Hawkwind and Kraut rock to great effect though the band they are most often compared to with some true relevance is Spacemen 3 . Whether Sonic Booms assertion that Loop ripped them off is entirely credible is another thing.
Normally an album that does the same thing song after song would have me tutting so furiously I'd dislocate my tongue but with Heavens End this repetition is it's greatest strength oddly enough. The grooves are instantly locked in on every track and they do not deviate which is undoubtedly the point. Nor do they deviate hugely from track to track Having said that there is just enough variety to prevent staleness or apathy wandering glibly in .
The straight up( appropriately enough) fuzzed up circuitous furrows of "Straight To Your Heart" are set against the more palpable psychedelic strains of "Soundhead" while the glorious chugging chords of "Head On" are more in thrall to traditional rock music. Remastered by Robert Hampson the album sounds tremendous and it's unlikely my slightly crackly vinyl copy will ever be needed again.
It might not be everyone's cup of tea but Heavens End is a an album of wonderful guitar induced nirvana . It's hypnotic, thrilling and curiously relaxing and even in one or two instances danceable ( "Head On " has discernible funk undertones)Their greatest single moment is still the quite magnificent Arc Lite but for anyone susceptible to music that takes the guitar to the outer limits of where it can go this really is heavens end .

"My mind is going..."
The first Loop record I ever picked up back in 1988, and still an astonishing example of hypnotic psych-drone that the likes of Warlocks and The Black Angels could only ever hope of emulating (and long may they continue to try...). The guitars on this first album shimmered and glistened far more than on any of their later albums, each of which is equally as astonishing, but all three are completely different from each other whilst still remaining undeniably recognisable as Loop. I can remember back in the late 80's when Sonic from Spacemen 3 was telling all and sundry that Loop had ripped off their sound, but even to the layman this was obviously a case of sour grapes - indeed, the only really truly similar sounding track in their catalog was 'Suicide', and that was on an album that came out nearly two years after "Heaven's End". As a point of interest, if you like that Spacemen track, then the title track off this album will blow you (and it, for t hat matter) out of the water!!! Honestly, it is because of this band that I looked up bands like Can, Faust, Neu!, The Pop Group, Suicide..., their influence on how I changed my viewpoint on what was important in music I will NEVER underestimate! This has been soooo due a reissue for so long, but finally those unlucky enough to have never previously heard (or even heard OF) Loop will have a chance to hear an album which actually changed my life, and those words are not used lightly!