the second album "peasants, pigs & astronauts" was partly recorded aboard the houseboat-studio astoria, which belongs to guitarist david gilmour (of pink floyd). brett findlay joined the band as resident percussionist and remained with the band until their break-up at the end of 1999. the release of "peasants, pigs & astronauts" was preceded by the single "mystical machine gun" which failed to make as strong an impact on the charts as their previous singles, peaking at number 14 and only remaining two weeks in the top 40. the album itself followed in march 1999 to mixed reviews, and only sold a mere 25,000 copies in its first week as it crawled in at number 9 on the album chart, spending only 10 weeks in the uk top 75. the album went gold in the uk (over 100,000 copies sold). the third and final single from the album, "shower your love" failed to reignite momentum, stalling at no. 14, even with it having more tv exposure on "top of the pops", "tfi friday", "later... with jools holland" and "".