Couldn't think of anything more fitting for Valentine's day.

Rarely would you find a band in late '80s Los Angeles that dipped their collective toes in their fair city's psych-revival movement and in the far more lucrative Hollywood metal scene to boot. Even rarer would you find an aggregation to pull it off with as much class and charisma as I Love You did. With roots in Florida band the Sinful Pigeons, the members made their way to the left coast to reinvent themselves as I Love You. After a handful of compilation appearances and a live ep (which I'll get to in a moment) ILY honed their chops convincingly enough to attract the bigwigs at Geffen Records, who issued their self-titled debut in the year of Nirvana, 1991. Straddling the fine line between the burgeoning alt-metal movement and their own recipe of retro-fitted rawk, the band's debut also serves as their defining moment. Chris Palmer pulls off many an impressive Morrison-esque maneuver, with Jeff Nolan liberally indulging in jammy axe solos, stopping short of a wank-fest. For it's era, I Love You's supernatural and religious references were something of an anomaly, but once this quartet's collective mojo lured you in, the pleasure wasn't the least bit guilty.

On their preceding, scalding-hot live ep from 1989, ILY exude a raw, guttural panache, utterly lost in the translation to their Geffen debut. Informed by equal parts punk and psych (at this stage in their career anyway) ILY eke out a handful of bristling originals, as well as a smoldering rendition of Cream's "S.W.L.A.B.R."