Drums & Bells

Youth Worshipper

2012-01-19T23:02:00.000-08:00

In the past few years the church (now all lower case) has had a few new official histories written about them: No Certainty Attached-biography and Marty's liner notes for the early period 30th anniversary reissues. It's interesting how Youth Worshipper is mentioned in both in almost same way: "...a fairly topical commentary on those who use cosmetics and other means in order to prolong their

NIGHT SEQUENCE

2011-11-06T04:26:00.000-08:00

night sequence, an element of something bigger than we can know, what happened before or after this sequence? times arrow meets memory, all part of some cinematic or theatrical event, where the actors are unmasked, where the drama steps off the screen or stage, and the boundaries are dissolved, where the film stops being a film and the participants are the audience, the listener and the actors

ALREADY YESTERDAY

2011-11-01T01:38:00.000-07:00

some things are personal with the church, they sit in the studio writing songs and steve has some words he writes and they record it and send it out into the universe and some where some place far away i heard it, you heard it, and our experience and neural networks process it and make sense of it and our subjective experience is created and then memories are formed and somewhere in the mix with

SHADOW CABINET

2011-10-28T02:21:00.000-07:00

now... it's happening, words loose meaning, become sound, moving through the song, jingle jangle, lots of subtle tones, some portal type moment, looping and melting and ringing their way through the aether manifest speakers, glissando transmission, aural entry , vibration hits the drum and links with synaptic systems, neural networks form, connect the dots, intricate chemical transmissions and

D O M E

2011-10-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

drum roll, guitar and you're hypnotised, weaving under the spell, deeper down, every beat sends you deeper and deeper down into a relaxed state as the voice guides you into the theta realms, eyelids attain weight as they draw down slowly like a shutter blind, light diminishes, your head rolls back, eyes now closed and the images start to flicker, is it a film, a dream steve had or a blend of both

LOST MY TOUCH

2011-10-11T23:53:00.000-07:00

i don't know, i'm a word man, i read a lot, i enjoy a good line, i appreciate a nice bit of narrative, something that comes at you from a different angle and carry's you along on a journey. destination never matters does it? it's the journey. that's what they say down in esotericville and new age book shops. here's a song that i feel really encapsulates this, 'lost my touch' firstly what a

Night Of Light

2010-11-21T08:15:00.000-08:00

There is a consensus that Night Of Light is perhaps the one of the weakest tracks in Heyday. It has all kinds of additional elements such as strings, horns and even a choir buried somewhere in the mix.Has the band gone too far and was it all worth it? It has also been revealed that the band made little or no money from Heyday as most of the budget went to the lavish orchestrations. Night Of Light

LOST MY TOUCH

2010-10-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

LOST MY TOUCH I read Luries expose not too long ago and its funny you know how things hit you impressions really they are and btw when I say read I really mean skim because I was never one who reads for pleasure much it’s always something else can you dig? But it’s an intimate bit and how could I get sucked into its vortex right? And the man’s got a true determination that the best of us

NOVEMBER

2010-10-08T06:34:00.000-07:00

I am the eldest oneAnd I come from a frozen sunWhere everything’s left undoneI drink reds and blue and cadmiumI am the middle oneI birthed our little ones I drink hearts of SparrowMy path is always narrowI am the youngest sonI live among the ancient onesI drink blood and wire and razorsAnd I will evade ya

Anna Miranda

2010-10-05T17:26:00.000-07:00

well, it seems like i'm never here anymore so i will contribute my 2¢ to this little bit of poetic geniusand that is just what it is you see, it's a bit of fractal logicone might call it - that is - each part contains the whole - there is no separation between time or space - isn't this how the artist create?no separation - and audience? we who admire(pretend or deceive) the artist who takes us

Happy Hunting Ground

2010-09-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

by fandorinThis little intermezzo from Heyday makes me think of my musical socialization.Apart from the odd Beatles song and, in earlier childhood some E.L.O. (sic!), rock music didn’t play the first violin in my life. In fact, rock music didn’t play any violins at all. Rock music sat somewhere else, and I wouldn’t discover its magic before age 14. Not that I hated it. I just didn’t care. My

from the vaults

2010-09-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

excerpt from "comedown" WXND FM 10/31/05 original 2hr set here: http://nljkfcswjnfkjw.blogspot.com/

Deadman´s Hand (ep)

2010-06-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

I thought that The Church would have this year off with recordings. Maybe some sideprojects and solo related stuff would surface. When this ep was announced it didn´t sound like a brilliant idea on paper. An ep to go with an acoustic tour and maybe not even for sale through the usual systems. It has to be worse than the Operetta-ep that was stretching the formula of the band quite a lot. Moon

MOON HANGS IN BLACK

2010-05-31T17:04:00.000-07:00

'moon hangs in black' from the operetta ep performed by the church a visual tribute [303iamge] conceived and composed for this group of adept artist musicians painters philosophers lovers fans or whatever we are hopefully to open a metaphysical fifth-dimension from which to experience the sonic and lyrical gravitas of this song~scape

1st woman on the moon

2010-05-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

countless re-births and unfathomed lifetimes thought and form merge feeling meaning and formlessness a singularity one idea one body one bride fragrant substantive and demure this non-linear super-symmetric universe...

THE CHURCH - DAKOTA

2010-05-01T20:48:00.000-07:00

DAKOTA

2010-04-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

There's, if you notice, an interior hidden little second gem of an album tucked away within the, now what, 5 EPs? from (what I considered at first listen a jam tele-ported from a height and heart of one of many psychedelic studio sessions [circa 1967] Can, Traffic, Moody Blues, etc.) Untitled #23. The Church's Dead Man's Hand EP works itself around its own mini-drama, in the same way of a '

Already Yesterday

2010-04-26T22:33:00.000-07:00

Eliminator (1983) by ZZ Top was the album of the 80´s that was made as a soundtrack for driving and cruising around the streets and highways. If you had to choose one album by The Church for the same purpose it would be Heyday (1985). Already Yesterday is almost a typical song of Heyday and it has many of the themes as the other songs. We are in present time with cars but still the setting moves

MYRRH

2010-04-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

A THOUSAND SOUNDS ASCEND AMPLIFIED THIS JUMP-OFFINTO THE UNKNOWN YOUR LYRICS NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE AWAKENING IN A DREAM THERE I’LL MEET YOU NEXT TIME LOVE SALVAGES OUR INTENSIONSAME SUN WARMS US BACK MIRACLES UPON MIRACLE STILL NOT LEFT UNDONE

Tristesse

2009-08-01T21:54:00.001-07:00

It´s easy to see how the heyday of the band is somewhere around here. After Myrrh Tristesse starts with irresistible opening riff and never let´s go after that. These two opening songs are about the best start of any album. This song is just pure enjoyment from start to finish. The mystic feeling of Myrrh coupled with the catchy pop approach of Tristesse draws me straight in to the world of

Myrrh

2009-07-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

The previous albums of the Church, Seance and Remote Luxury, were good albums but there was something little missing in them. It was as if the band wasn´t firing on all cylinders. This could be understandable if the bassplayer dictates what guitarplayers should play and doesn´t let them do what comes naturally. That approach lacked spontaneity and improvisation. Both of those qualities are

Remote Luxury

2009-07-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

It would be easy to dismiss the title song of Remote Luxury as just another instrumental, even though it´s just their second instrumental. The first one being the b-side The Golden Dawn. I listen to The Church mainly because SK sings there and the instrumentals are not so interesting by default. Listening to the instrumental repeatedly however reveals many things about it. It feels like a bridge

Shadow Cabinet

2009-07-07T06:42:00.001-07:00

by fandorin Off Remote Luxury, Shadow Cabinet has the best, most elegant flow. It is the first song of The Church featuring that rushed, breathless atmosphere of mystery. I always love that slick sense of flying, rushing and soaring through atmo-, strato-, narcospheres... it's almost like a little sub-genre in The Church's catalogue. Myrrh comes to mind. Night Of Light, none on

Into My Hands

2009-07-05T07:41:00.001-07:00

Cute and twee. There I said it. This song is really pretty but it´s a bit too cute and frustratingly twee. Boy meets girl la-la-laa. This is one of those nursery rhyme- kinda songs. One/album is okay, but two is pushing it. Into My Hands feels almost like a song off from Steve´s first solo album Earthed. I mean even if The Church goes to ultra slow widescreen mode (Old Flame, Summer, Invisible,

Violet Town

2009-06-22T19:58:00.000-07:00

There isn´t many songs about colours in The Church songbook. There is no songs about black, red, yellow, orange, green, purple or white. White Star Line exists but it´s not about white colour. Cobalt Blue is a new song but it never mentions blue. In Violet Town there is colours unlike in other songs. Violet describes the music of the band as a colour quite fittingly. The music they play is not

Autumn Soon

2009-06-17T21:01:00.000-07:00

What kind of feeling it is when you know autumn comes soon? The days are still warm and light but there is a sense of the end of the fun carefree season. Shadows become longer and the sky is filled with big rainclouds every now and then. It becomes harder and harder to wear shorts and live like there is no tomorrow. It can´t go on like this forever and you know it.Am I now describing a season or

10 000 Miles

2009-06-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

10 000 Miles...is the kinda song they still play, SK and Marty together. Somewhere there near the red point (1.). With acoustic geetaars playing to the faithful. I listen to that stuff from boots, or at least read about it somewhere like the womb. I´m around the other red point (2.) and just about 10 000 Miles away. I wonder if I would go to see them if I was in Australia or if I was an

Maybe These Boys

2009-06-15T05:57:00.001-07:00

by FandorinThe infamous Maybe These Boys! A pretty effective build-up, and it's actually quite fascinating in its blatant silliness. The only vaguely similar track in The Church's entire oeuvre is The Faith Healer from A Box Of Birds. I'd love to hear a live medley, with Maybe These Boys and Faith Healer frankensteined together.Another lesson The Church have learned from Art and Prog Rock is the

A Month Of Sundays

2009-04-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

I had to dig out the original CD copy of Remote Luxury to get in to the mood of the album. Many times the cover art of the album gives some kind of idea what kind of album it is, although with The Church many of the covers are very slightly if at all connected to the music. The closest neighbours of Remote Luxury, Seance and Heyday, give some kind of idea what´s inside the sleeve. Those are

No Explanation

2009-04-08T20:37:00.000-07:00

by chrome3dIn the december of 1994 I saw The Church acoustic duo gig in Helsinki. It was only SK and Marty at this point but I guess I was still excited to see them. Of course I was disappointed at first that it wasn´t the whole deal but a compressed version of the vision. I was expecting to hear many songs from Starfish (then the best album ever) and Heyday (then almost the best album ever). To

Volumes

2009-04-07T01:50:00.000-07:00

Volumes is the first The Church song written entirely by Marty Willson-Piper. It doesn´t feel out of place in the Remote Luxury LP album or Persia Ep, where it appeared first. It´s a fine song for a first (?) effort and it appeared also later on Marty´s first soloalbum In Reflection (1987). The version here in Remote Luxury is much better than the loose version found in In Reflection, which also

constant in opal

2009-03-31T16:11:00.000-07:00

i recall wandering through a london record shop and seeing the cover of remote luxury, it struck me before i even knew it was the church. when i saw it was a record by the church i bought it immediately but i probably would have got it if it was a band unknown to me as i liked the cover, fickle youth that i was.constant in opal was a song that i loved so much, i played it and played it over and

Violet Town

2009-03-31T04:24:00.000-07:00

by fandorinI was warned. I had asked the Music Sage who introduced me to The Church for a kind of commented band history/discography (no internet, no wikipedia, no entry in Encyclopedia Britannica, remember?) - and I got one I still keep. It was a cool little introduction to their music, but I had only two records, so the rest of the music happened in my imagination. It was all praise and great

Someone Special

2009-03-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

by chrome3dI have been trying to write something special about Someone Special for some time but the song hasn´t been that inspirational. While many songs of the band are multi-layered masterpieces that easily last over and over again in the test of time, then this is hardly one of those. It´s a quite nice ditty but I can´t see myself listening to it that many times. Good b-side but not much more

Constant In Opal

2009-03-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

by timetunnelA long time ago, in a galaxy far far away... was a boy who had just been recommended a band called "The Church". "The Church, huh?", he thought. But he read a good review in a music magazine and as a result went to the local record store. Though being in a pretty small town they really had one copy of "Remote Luxury". Little Boy grabbed it, went to the listening desk and there it all

Now I Wonder Why 3

2009-03-29T08:01:00.000-07:00

by timetunnelThere are these songs people call "typical" for the Church. Songs that contain all the ingredients to make The Church's style and sound unique. One of the first songs which may be put into that category is Tear It All Away. Also, in the liner notes of 1987's Hindsight Steve Kilbey described Almost With You as "the definitve Church song" - but it never was for it me. No, from all the

It doesn´t change

2009-03-23T02:03:00.001-07:00

by chrome3dOrgans and drums in the intro create a gloomy mood. I still don´t think it´s goth as there is clearly different kind of beauty in the twinkling of the piano and the way the song slowly builds. There isn´t much to fit in with the description of goth on this album but maybe this song is the closest there is but like always the stylistic categorization is quite difficult with the band. It

Dropping Names

2009-03-17T21:59:00.000-07:00

by chrome3dThere isn´t much songs that rock in Seance. One Day is giddy pop and Dropping Names is the closest one to rock. From OSAH the band has gone "soft" in only 2 albums. This is perhaps the only song from Seance that could be seen in the context of OSAH. Sometimes I think that Dropping Names is here only because the albums has to have some songs that will be good when played live and this

Now I Wonder Why 2

2009-03-06T01:15:00.000-08:00

by Vedantic dreams from AztlanThrough another channel, I find this song paralleling some of my felt intimate insecurities within the love experience, It plays out like a real confession of something very honest and dark. Inevitably I find myself having my own personal investment. That being said, the songs begins with the synchronized cascading guitars creating a very flowery and rainy

Now I Wonder Why

2009-03-04T21:17:00.000-08:00

by chrome3dI have never seen much in Now I Wonder Why. It has always been there towards the end of the album and I have felt it´s not one of the highlights of the album. Pleasant and average. Like always starting point can be anything but after 5-6 new listens I might think in another way.Acoustic guitar picking, lovely just lovely intro. Harmonica, wait there was harmonica? It fits nicely as all

Electric Lash

2009-02-28T08:01:00.001-08:00

by HananiOpening toy instruments and machine gun drum riffs are not normal staples of Church songs that we've come to love, and when the Church revisited "Electric Lash" for El Momento Siguiente, they wisely left that nonsense back in the grooves of the '80s Séance. I just wish they would have dropped the slide, too.I suppose it's all the dressing of the '80s that mask the muse in

Disappear?

2009-02-24T23:37:00.000-08:00

by chrome3dI have praised almost every song on Seance so far because they are so good, at least the first 3. Fly was a mysterious little tinkerbell, One Day was an euphoric pop blast and Electric was a sad world weary european aristocrat. Disappear still towers above these gems. It´s my favourite from this album. It has everything right and good while it´s still not so remarkable on some single

Travel By Thought

2009-02-18T04:22:00.001-08:00

by chrome3dI always skip Travel by Thought when I listen to Seance. Well, at least in 80% of the times I listen to the album. In 20% of the times I accidentally leave it on at low volume and try to make it through to the cute, wonderful, brilliant and awesome Disappear?. That is hardly a good starting point to review this song. The only thing is to start listen to it about 4-5 times in a row and

It´s No Reason

2009-02-14T21:48:00.001-08:00

by chrome3dThere was a rush to get the spot for the first songs of Seance. It´s understandable because that´s the kinda songs they are. Fly and One Day are songs that should instantly capture something in you if The Church is even somewhat familiar to you. Electric follows there after these two, not so excitable but good still. Then there is It´s No Reason. Now this song has been released as a

Electric

2009-02-11T22:39:00.000-08:00

by chrome3dElectric is important song in my view that it´s the first that shows that side of the band that will become quite prominent later on. The drums start the song and then it´s time for that classic Church twin-guitar stuff. First one guitar picks pearly notes and then another joins in with that majestic solo. Steve sounds so dreamy and sad on top of the atmospheres that make my heart sing

Fly

2009-02-11T00:53:00.000-08:00

by Heyday2dayWe all have songs that teleporte us to another time and place or that evoke specific memories, places, faces, times, smells, dreams........ Fly, in it's short 2:09 duration, was one of my first ones to fit that bill in my life. Sure, there had been others in my 20 years but up to then, nothing did to me what this one did. I picked this album up in 88 when the band was at their peak

One Day

2009-02-10T08:45:00.000-08:00

by timetunnelQuite often I associate the colors of an album cover with the music of that album. If that happens it's maybe caused by the fact that the album cover is either well chosen by the band, or at least is seen by the band as something that somehow correlates with the music. One of the albums that really bring up this album color <=> music connection thingy in my brainery is "Heyday". The

Fly

2009-02-10T07:28:00.000-08:00

by chrome3dMany openers of The Church are really standout tracks. Majestic sweeping epics that take you on a journey to far away distant lands. Fly is one of those but in a very different way than, say, Pharaoh or Block. Fly is short and sweet, warm and mysterious as ever. It creates the atmosphere with extra dreamy guitars, bongos and flying keyboards. It has acoustic instruments, or at least a

CAPTAIN MISSION WRITES ABOUT 'DEAD MANS DREAM'

2009-02-10T01:10:00.000-08:00

the first notes arrive on the back of the previous track, the haunting song 'fly home' which i will talk about later, those final notes fade into the sonic cyclic drone of tone, the harmony that steve and marty attain is perfection, the wonderful picture, no make that a landscape painted with words, and dreamy choral echo of those guitars in loop. there's a beautiful little bit where the

I Am A Rock

2009-02-09T22:22:00.000-08:00

by Heyday2dayThe final track on the Sing Songs EP and a Simon and Garfunkel cover to boot. Among the covers in the Church's recording history it stands as a curious choice. Was it's inclusion a result of the band being out of new material, was it strictly commerical driven or were they just such big fans of the track that they felt compelled to do their own take? The answer could be any or all.

In This Room

2009-02-07T02:23:00.001-08:00

These 3 songs in the middle of Sing-Songs give me some headache as where to place them. Ancient History, Night Is Very Soft and In This Room have sound that is very far from the usual Church-sound of that era. A Different Man and I Am A Rock bookend the ep quite nicely with familiar tones but in between there is a echoe-y and a bit plastic no man´s land that has a lot of the trademarks of the

The Night Is Very Soft

2009-02-05T06:07:00.000-08:00

by fandorinA dark painting of a bunch of knights holding a little bird. The clank and clatter of the harness. The grating squeal of the steel joints. Night falling, the fires of distant Jerusalem a sheer memory in war-damaged brains. Is there any human content in those armours? And suddenly that little bird decides to land... God what a great image. It's so scary and dark when you think about it.

Ancient History 2

2009-02-04T23:28:00.000-08:00

by Heyday2dayI had decided that I would leave the song reviews to those of you who write much more eloquently than me. Not only that but I find it very hard to appropriately describe things that have meant different things to me at different times; trying to make a concrete description of something that never remains the same, forever changing. Saying that, I felt that I had to add a bit to '

Ancient History

2009-02-03T05:54:00.000-08:00

By chrome3d Some of us are whiteSome of us are redSome have got these visions going 'round in our headsI have a feeling that this song is hastily done filler. Even though that might be the case, it still has something worth exploring. Those tree lines had me intrigued and they stayed in my head so much that I had to draw them in vector graphics software in order to have them in a quiz. Nobody

A Different Man

2009-02-01T05:22:00.000-08:00

by chrome3dA Different Man is perhaps the most Byrds-ian jangle song The Church has ever done. This label defines much of the early phase of the band, although I can´t say there has really been that many songs that could be defined mostly with a term jangle. Bel-Air, Almost With You, Just For You, To Be In Your Eyes (with some stretch of imagination) and A Different Man. That´s a handful of songs

Life Speeds Up

2009-01-31T13:42:00.000-08:00

by fandorinAnother year again. Another birthday (I stopped celebrating). Life speeds up. A professor of psychology once explained to me it has something to do with your awareness of your life's duration. When you're small, four years old, a year is a fourth of your life. When you're 40, a fourth of your life is ten years. Fractions getting smaller, creating the illusion of high speed life. Milan

The Golden Dawn

2009-01-29T00:05:00.001-08:00

According to Hindsight liner notes the title of The Golden Dawn is from drummer Richard Ploog, perhaps representing one of the contributions that can be credited only for Ploog. Liner notes also describe it as a slippery instrumental. That is partially true as it has usually slipped off my radar and I usually listen to it when I have left the album just playing after Life Speeds Up, which is

Don't Look Back

2009-01-26T23:31:00.000-08:00

by chrome3dI had a theory that The Blurred Crusade is a theme album and all the songs follow a "masterplan" that describes a story of a crusader although single songs follow the story only in a very loose fashion if at all. It was just an impression I got and I don't want to seek same kind of meanings and plots from other albums. Seance as a theme album about a seance? Maybe not. Anyway, I have

You Took

2009-01-26T07:28:00.000-08:00

by fandorinYou Took You… Took… At the end of the crusade, we will have to fight a monstrosity unseen before. There it is. You Took. Song title quite heavy on the “o”’s and on duration. The final battle of the epic The Blurred Crusade. Oh wait, did I say “epic”? The word “epic” when applied to pop music, usually sucks. It’s a knee jerk reaction to anything over 6:59, when you’re too lazy to

To Be In Your Eyes

2009-01-25T08:33:00.000-08:00

It's quite fitting that the song that follows A Fire Burns is one of the most simple and easily understandable songs of the album. When the previous song didn't make much sense even at the 50th glance then it's good to have an intimate and warm story about something that all of us have done. Dreaming in the night before sleep, listening to the sounds of night, trying to catch some sleep,

A fire burns 2

2009-01-24T07:28:00.000-08:00

by chrome3dAfter the mostly gentle songs of the beginning of the album we are now promised some serious and more straight forward rock, slightly more in the style of previous album Of Skins and Heart. It's perhaps the track that mostly resembles something that was spawned in the sessions for Of Skins And Heart. Even the title of the song could have been more at home in the track list of Of Skins

A Fire Burns

2009-01-24T06:30:00.000-08:00

by fandorinThe Blurred Crusade shows a band totally in control of itself, as well as a stubborn individuality. They could have become Australia's rock poster boys, instead, we find those mysterious knights and the little bird. We could have found a story, but with a strangeness reminding me of David Lynch's later movies, they are veiling, blurring it. Everything seems in its place, everything

Just For You

2009-01-22T04:34:00.001-08:00

Strumming acoustic guitar, knock knock, "Oh wait there" and the song just bursts in to the room. Steve sings in a slightly monotone way over the chirpy jangle and it feels like heaven. At the 2 minute mark starts an airy period that builds and builds and then the guitar solo starts to play with the strings of my heart. At the 4 minute mark a new jangle part just builds and builds to the beautiful

Secret Corners

2009-01-20T23:25:00.001-08:00

Is it possible to view The Blurred Crusade as a loose theme album about...indeed, a crusade? Why not? The odd experiments and achievements of 70’s prog are not far behind, it’s 1982 after all. The album is very much done for the vinyl in two parts and both sides are almost identical: 3 relatively straight popsongs, a huge epic and a small song in the end = straight 10 song pop album. So where is

An Interlude

2009-01-20T20:40:00.001-08:00

by Heyday2dayAnother fine song that holds its place well. From the dream pop of Almost With You, the frenetic, but controlled swirl of When You Were Mine, the melancholic, yet somewhat hopeful Field Of Mars to An Interlude. To my ears, this song carries the unique characteristics of the three previous tracks, yet the band does it in a way that makes the sum greater than the parts. Because of that

Field Of Mars

2009-01-19T21:54:00.000-08:00

by chrome3dAll songs on The Blurred Crusade are written by Kilbey except 3: Field Of Mars, An Interlude and You Took. It's easy to see why the last two songs are credited to the whole band as they rely on instrumental parts and jamming so heavily. Field of Mars however is a "real" and "proper" song. How much of it is actually Marty's is not known. Some of the lyrics are pure Marty featuring many

When You Were Mine 2

2009-01-19T21:53:00.002-08:00

by fandorinI must butt in here with another little quick glance, as When You Were Mine is my favourite song on The Blurred Crusade. When I learned about The Church in 1990, I was 13, and you know, money was scarce and hard to get. We had that huge record store in our town, and they even had something to file The Church under. I was amazed how many records they had out...and I loved to go there

When You Were Mine

2009-01-19T21:53:00.001-08:00

by HananiI guess I can't speak for Steve Kilbey here because i've never done the seance thing and lots of Steve's songs on this album seem to reference that. but the hell with that -- I love this music! Is this dated? I dunno, couldn't tell you. This is Tantalized, this is Hotel Womb, and you know that this is a great concert song because this is theatrics, building, building, exploding!"Explode

Almost With You

2009-01-17T21:42:00.000-08:00

Almost With You is one of the true classic openers of The Church albums. It sucks me right in to the mood of the album. It has drive and speed but the melancholic blues shades layered on top of it make it a song that can be appreciated in many moods quite perfectly. It's a quality that I often seek, being able to project many moods on a song.The lyrics of the song are enigmatic as ever. More like

Sisters

2009-01-17T06:47:00.000-08:00

So we learn this is the first song they wrote together. You can easily imagine how someone finds that lovely lovely twinkling guitar melody and the other someone tests different chords against it until they got stuck with the ultra-classic chord pattern that became Sisters a few hours and probably several spliffs later. As always, the effect of repeating a strong guitar melody in different chord

Busdriver 2

2009-01-16T02:59:00.000-08:00

by fandorinThere are three things about Busdriver I really really like - the first open chord guitar riff after the intro chug, the doubled-up vocals and the rhythm change in the end. Also the sinister lyrics... "Busdriver, busdriver there's no one else but us" - i don't have to read on to understand being trapped on a bus, driving into the Realm of Darkness isn't my fav hobby. Who in the end is

Busdriver

2009-01-15T20:17:00.001-08:00

by chrome3dA song that has been officially released only on the b-side of The Unguarded Moment vinyl single. Busdriver is a song that gets a lot of flak and most of it to me is quite unnecessary. It has that usual Of Skins and Heart-era chug chug guitar style and to me it sounds mostly okay. Hard rock guitar solos sound especially nice here. I don't know why this has been left out of

You've Got To Go

2009-01-14T23:53:00.000-08:00

by DugsterI get as much pleasure from all the b-sides as I do from the albums. I think this started when I made my 2nd Church purchase with Hindsight. What a bizarre album that is in (haha) hindsight. Real mix of singles, b-sides, ep tracks, etc. Not a best of and not a leftover collection but something truly unique. And where my love for this band was truly sealed. I only had Starfish until I

Fräulein

2009-01-14T03:51:00.000-08:00

by fandorinI'm highly interested in the production side of music. Recording tricks? Fifty-seven ways to record a bass drum? Channeling guitar signals? Give it to me!! There are some albums with awesome songs and lousy/dated/production. Then there are some brilliantly produced albums, with each microphone more expensive than my monthly rent, not having anything to offer musically. Sometimes it all

In a Heartbeat

2009-01-14T03:47:00.000-08:00

by chrome3d"...we still sometimes drag this out and give it a good kicking" (Hindsight sleeve notes)I don't see this song mentioned a lot. Busdriver gets a lot more mentions. That note from Hindsight is just about the only description that I can find. I want to imagine if the things said in these notes are still true even though over 20 years have passed. It's funny to think that in these days

Too fast for you

2009-01-14T03:46:00.001-08:00

This was attached to the end of Of Skins and Heart with Sisters and Tear It All Away. I have always seen those songs as integral part of the album, although it's quite clear that the album closes with Don't Open The Door To Strangers. This song feels like a bridge between the harder rock of Of Skins and Heart and the warmer atmosphere of The Blurred Crusade. This is The Church at their most poppy

Tear it all away 2

2009-01-14T03:44:00.001-08:00

by HananiI must have been 12 years old, maybe thirteen. I wanted Tear it All Away to speak for me, even though it didn't accurately reflect me or my life.Tear it All Away was my introduction to the Church at the same time as Unguarded Moment, probably one step behind, though, when MTV was young and I DID know Unguarded Moment from that time a year or so earlier. M(tv) Tape was the compilation

Tear it all away 1

2009-01-14T03:42:00.000-08:00

by fandorinI first found Tear It All Away on my copy of Of Skins And Heart aka The Church. I never really got it but it was released after Of Skins And Heart as a double single; for the US release, Fighter Pilot was kicked from the album and replaced by Tear It All Away.What to say. It has got written "new direction" all over it. Gone is the chugging - for good (whenever they returned to power

Don't Open The Door To Strangers

2009-01-14T03:40:00.000-08:00

by chrome3dAcoustic guitar strumming, slow rhythm section, Steve sounds sleepy and deep. Piano starts and somewhere in the background organ weaves a Procol Harum-ish melancholic web. There is some Elton John-vibes too in here too, if I knew what Elton is all about. When everything feels complete the slide guitar starts to squeeze some extra emotion at 2:06. During the last lines when Steve sings

Fighter Pilot...Korean War

2009-01-14T03:39:00.000-08:00

by chrome3dI was playing Of Skins And Heart at work. There was also these two younger guys and they started to laugh at it. "This is 80es! Hah haa! What sounds!" As I'm so deep in to the world of Church I can´t hear that stuff. I listen to it probably in another way. When we came to Fighter Pilot another one became kinda excited. "Hey this is the devils notes (Tritone) ! Then he became this story

Is This Where You Live?

2009-01-14T03:36:00.000-08:00

by chrome3d"Branching off, the road winds eastDeluxe locations just near completionCome dine with wine and oyster feastThe pearls are real, have one for freeThey're washed up by the foam-waved sea"It´s funny to see how that was written waaaay back in 1980 or even earlier but those themes surface over and over again in Steve´s blog. Those lines are something that I could imagine reading today in

Bel-Air 2

2009-01-14T03:34:00.000-08:00

by fandorinJust a small second perspective on Bel-Air.Yes, with the first 4 songs, The Church established themselves as wavy power pop heroes. Accelerate, hehe. I guess I have to defend Bel-Air from the "twee" label. Apart from being (IMHO) a pretty masterpiece, it was again showcase for a band having already mastered a lot of rock tradition. They knew how to kick ass, how to sling guitars and

Bel-Air 1

2009-01-14T03:31:00.000-08:00

by chrome3dThere is no need to have so many words. It´s just the excitement of starting it. Later I will probably be more economical with the amount of words. I also feel that the 4 first songs form a unified group in the beginning of the album. Chug chug bang bang, take no prisoners kind of attitude. Although Bel-Air was chosen here as the best song of OSAH it´s still a bit of a letdown in the

Memories In Future Tense

2009-01-14T03:30:00.001-08:00

by dugsterFor me the first 4 tracks on Of Skins and Heart are a bit interchangeable. They are all of a sort if you catch my drift. Real rockers almost unique as a group of songs in the Church cannon. Great chugging guitar riff and brilliant interplay between the 2 very different guitar parts. The echoey vocals sound good too. Not sure about the chorus - a bit too simplistic. Great solo around the

The Unguarded Moment

2009-01-14T03:27:00.000-08:00

by chrome3dFirst of all, I want to say that I feel unworthy to review this song. To me it´s just a song without any deeper meaning or story when I first heard it. Only a lot later than 1989, when I got this album in then hypermodern CD-format, did I even knew it had been some kind of hit.So deep, deep without a meaningI knew you'd find me leavingTell those friends with cameras for eyesThat their

Chrome Injury

2009-01-14T03:23:00.000-08:00

by fandorinMost great debut albums show a certain tendency to transcend music, the band and itself by what you could call "show off", caused by a deep desire of "defining", so you always hear more than the music itself. It's almost an indicator to me - if you can hear a band of that time, let's say, 1975-1982, seriously thinking about music and their approach to it, it's almost dead sure it's a

For a Moment We're Strangers

2009-01-13T21:11:00.000-08:00

By chrome3dIt sounds so perky and upbeat. It's a perfect opener and tells what kind of album it will be. It's not extremely remarkable or memorable but it works like a train for what it´s supposed to be: an introduction to the band or a manifesto of their style. The announcement that we are here and this is how we do it. I listened to this song 7 times in a row and it has a lot of stuff going on.