The Decline and Fall of Heavenly is the third studio album

Studio album

A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

 by British indie pop

Indie pop

Indie pop is a genre of alternative rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid 1980s, with its roots in the Scottish post-punk bands on the Postcard Records label in the early '80s, such as Orange Juice, Josef K and Aztec Camera, and the dominant UK independent band of the mid...

 band Heavenly

Heavenly (British band)

Heavenly were a 1990s twee pop band, originally forming in Oxford, England in 1989. Amelia Fletcher , Mathew Fletcher , Peter Momtchiloff and Robert Pursey had all been members of Talulah Gosh, a key member of the C86 scene.-History:Heavenly debuted with the 7" single "I Fell in Love Last...

. It was released in September 1994 by Sarah Records

Sarah Records

Sarah Records was a UK independent record label active between 1987 and 1995, best known for its recordings of indie pop.The label was formed in Bristol in 1987 by Clare Wadd and Matt Haynes, and grew out of the fanzine scene at the time, Haynes having previously edited Are You Scared To Get...

 with the catalogue number SARAH 623 (see Sarah Records catalogue

Sarah Records catalogue

The Sarah Records' catalogue consists of around a hundred items, each of which has a catalogue number. The items from Sarah 001 to Sarah 100 are mostly 7 inch singles...

). In the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 the album was released by K Records

K Records

K Records is an independent record label in Olympia, Washington, co-founded, owned, and operated by Calvin Johnson, formerly of the bands Cool Rays, Beat Happening, The Go Team, The Halo Benders and presently in the bands Dub Narcotic Sound System and The Hive Dwellers...

.

Four songs were re-recorded for a John Peel

John Peel

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...

 radio session in June 1994: the instrumental "Sacramento"; "Itchy Chin"; "Doomster (Three Star Compartment)"; and "Sperm Meets Egg, So What?".

A Japanese reissue on Quattro added five tracks from two British EPs

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

 (also released on one CD by both Sarah and K): "Atta Girl"; "Dig Your Own Grave"; "P.U.N.K. Girl"; "Hearts and Crosses";
and "So".

Reception

EW.com (Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

) states that the music "adds spice with two harmonizing female vocalists sweetly delivering dry, sarcastic lyrics about things like trying to get a lover to leave so you can wake up alone."

From Allmusic: "...a cleanly produced sequence of bouncy, guitar-based pop songs — and fans of the band know just how good they are at writing bouncy pop songs. The only problem with The Decline and Fall is that it's so painfully short."

Tracklisting

1. "Me and My Madness"
2. "Modestic"
3. "Skipjack"
4. "Itchy Chin"
5. "Sacramento"
6. "Three Star Compartment"
7. "Sperm Meets Egg, So What?"
8. "She and Me"