Working in a country that some people fear is turning into one ongoing dance production, the House of Love chooses to be a rock band. On their U.S. majorlabel debut, these four young Britons are already a focused guitar outfit, intolerant of clichés and able to sustain minor-key themes throughout rockers and ballads. Nodding to the purposefulness of U2, the scale of the Smiths and the momentu...

On the cover of 'A Spy in the House of Love,' the House of Love's second album, appear four novels (Lolita, by Nabokov; Nausea, by Sartre; The Catcher in the Rye, by Salinger; The Spy in the House of Love, by Anais Nin), a bottle of tequila, a pack of Winstons and a dog wearing sunglasses and a kerchief. What the London group, led by the deep-thinking Guy Chadwick, forgot to include are Leonard...