And Also The Trees

by John Bush

From a rural village in Worcestershire, England, brothers Simon (vocals) and Justin Jones (guitar) formed And Also the Trees in 1979 with bassist Steven Burrows and drummer Nick Havas. In response to an ad by the Cure looking for support bands on their English tour, the Jones brothers sent a tape and ended up doing several dates and later an entire tour with Robert Smith and co. in 1981. And Also the Trees still hadn't released any material at that point, so the Cure's Lol Tolhurst produced a single ("Shantell") and the band's eponymous debut album, released in February of 1984. Tolhurst's work made the Cure an easy pointer for And Also the Trees' sound, though the fragile beauty of Joy Division and the Chameleons also lend comparisons. The band contributed a session to John Peel's BBC radio show, and Continental critics lavished praise on subsequent albums Virus Meadow (1986), The Millpond Years (1988) and the live LP The Evening of the 24th (released 1987). The notoriously fickle U.K. music press, however, deserted the waning Goth fad and the group was left drifting. Farewell to the Shade, released in 1989, was And Also the Trees' final British release, as well as the only album available in America (on Troy Records). The group moved to the German label Normal for 1992's Green Is the Sea and The Klaxon, released the following year.