i remember scoring that record almost certainly on the back of SR 's slavering hype - there was a v strong favour-of-the-month-ist culture at that time, as we were discussing on the SR thread, and ARK were a prime example of that.
I made great valiant efforts to love it (and be a hip teenage indie vanguardist) and succeeded to some extent, but it hasnt really stuck with me, in fact re-listening now i would say it just slid away, intangibly and murmuring fuzzily. i guess there are some catchy earwormy moments, but for me it was another element in that 4AD movement away from core indie, towards a destination as yet unknown (unless you had already made the jump to the new epoch of house and electronics) these were still guitar guys, though they had blackness, they were still stretching it using synths and stuff, but hadn't quite made the leap...
except they had - they'd already had a number 1 hit with pump up the volume ffs - a totally different dimension of pop excitement and joy - this album should have been some sort of crossover leading us towards the nuum