The supporting tour for Submarine Bells culminated in a triumphant home-coming concert in Dunedin Town Hall.

The Chills released their debut studio album Brave Words in 1987; they had relocated to London earlier in the year.

Upon returning to London in early 1989, the band started working with Gary Smith for their next album Submarine Bells.

[1] Trouser Press singled out the "splendorous title track", the "should-have-been-a-smash 'Heavenly Pop Hit'", and many other individual tracks, but chiefly praised the album for its overall cohesion and consistency – signs of the Chills' evolution from "a first-rate singles band" to a fully formed artistic venture with a "mature, restrained and affectingly personal approach".

[12] In his book Music: What Happened?, musician and critic Scott Miller calls it "a dynamite whole album", and "the international star and culmination of" the Dunedin sound.