The Byrds' new wave album.
The production on this album is so unmistakably early 80's new wave, but the playing is like a faster Byrds record from the late 60's. The guitars have that jangle and there's some actual solos here that are kind of embarrassingly wanky. Except good. It's a little weird to think these guys sounded this good and perfected on their first album. The sequencing of the first three songs, and the shockingly good performances of the tunes, does perhaps set the bar a little too high for the rest of the album, but there aren't really any bad songs here. The production does kind of mute the tunes by the time the epic "Is This Where You Live?" rolls around and the song's impact is muffled a bit. It's followed by some really good songs and the album closes with the goofy piano ballad "Don't Open the Door to Strangers" (which isn't bad, just goofy). However, although the production may be one-dimensional, the songs are wide ranging enough to make good use of the album's forty minute running time. All in all, it shows a band full of potential; perhaps too full in a way. There is no shortage of great riffs and melodies here and the band's influences combine for a weird mixture. It sort of sounds like the typical radio ready new wave of the day filtered through a somehwta conservative rockist slant. I guess their closest contemporaries at the time would have been Squeeze, except without the hindering Beatles fascination. In any case, what a debut. And great cover art, as well.
~Austin
EXTRA TRACKS...
This album has been messed around with quite a bit. Initially released as a nine track album in Australia, it was first released in america as a nine track album with a different running order and about half of the same songs. Later released in america as a twelve track album, containing all of the songs from the original Australian release, plus the three extra songs that were traded out on the initial american release. I have discussed the original Australian release on Parlophone in my review.
Less nervous. More developed.
As good and unique as Of Skins and Heart, it essentially felt like the band has maybe rehearsed too much. They knew exactly what to do at every explicit second and banged out the songs with a nervous quickness. With the first track on their second album, "Almost With You", they instantly feel more relaxed and more comfortable. It does wonders for their already subtle, layered sound. They don't try to beat anybody over the head with a guitar solo or riff here and the songs feel more complete because of it. The fact that the solo on "Almost With You" is played on an acoustic guitar should be a good indicator of how they've progressed. The songs are allowed to build and develop and the catchiest riffs might not appear until a minute and a half in. Steve Kilbey begins his lyrical focus on the mystical muses that don't make sense to anyone except him, shifting away from the first album's obsession with isolation and outsider point of view narratives. Marty Willson-Piper's first lead vocal on a Church track appears here, and it's a great one: "Field of Mars" is a lovelorn space traveler's soundtrack. And really, it's the Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes show for this album. Because, even though there are virtually no instances of dissonance or distortion, this is a guitar workout of a record (only the epic "You Took" comes close to being a 'guitar workout' in the traditional sense). The layers on tracks like "In Your Eyes" are just deep and fascinating. It's strummy, folky, riffy goodness and while some of the songs do go on for a bit too long, there isn't anything bad here by any stretch of the imagination. An overall improvement from the first album.
~Austin
The first fully realized Church album.
The cliche about this album is the 'bad' production. But really, besides the fluffy snare drum, there's nothing wrong with it at all. It sounds like a regular 1983 guitar rock production. And besides this is basically the band's strongest and most cohesive set of songs so far, so what's the problem? The opening one-two punch of "Fly" and the heavenly "One Day" is a brilliantly dynamic start. The addition of light keyboards, extra hand percussions and even a children's choir (no, seriously) gives the band's already heavily layered sound even more depth and, for the first time, it feels like a cohesive album for the band, instead of just a collection of new songs. Practically everything that's great about the Church is included on this album: slower, reflective moments ("Electric" and "It's No Reason"); exquisite guitar pop ("One Day" and "Electric Lash"); and spacey, psychedelic events ("Travel by Thought"). The only thing that's missing is a Marty Willson-Piper-sung track. But, honestly, this album is so good, you'll only partially miss him. His guitar work is brilliant, regardless. This is where the Church became timeless and if it weren't for that stubborn snare sound which betrays the album's period of creation, there'd be no telling when it was recorded. A perfect encapsulation of the band's early days and a fantastic apex of their opening trilogy of records. Side one is a bit stronger than side two, but this is where the band formed their signature sound, so it makes the album an important must-have within their discography.
~Austin
A fine, if scattered, unintentional follow-up to Seance.
Actually a compilation of the band's Persia (1983) and Violet Town (1984) EP's, this album was released in 1984 for the band's growing american audience. As a single disc album, it's a pretty good follow-up to Seance, but appropriately the songs feel less integrated. It does find the band getting a little bit more atmospheric and overall more willing to experiment with their formula. Not everything goes in their favor ("Maybe These Boys..." with it's strange, somewhat bluesy time signature and intrusive keyboards isn't exactly a bull's eye and the instrumental title track, despite having a good melody, is ruined by it's goofy guitar tone that would sound right at home on the Top Gun soundtrack), but if the record is viewed as a between album space filler, it sounds a lot better than if it's treated as their next proper album, which it isn't.
~Austin
Back to basics.
When the opening track "Myrrh" begins, it's just a wonderful thing to hear these guys bang out a masterfully layered song like that with such a cool and calm delivery. Right away though, the album's tone is noticeably more minor than before and decidedly gloomy. For the most part, the experiments into more atmospheric sounds are somewhat abandoned here in favor of their previous strictly layered guitar sound. The instrumental "Happy Hunting Ground" sounds like a Violet Town leftover and is the only thing here that really continues in that direction. It's mostly back to the sound of jangling, ringing orchestrated guitars. It would be more of a letdown if the songs weren't as good as they are, but considering its predecessors, it feels a little regressive.
~Austin
The big budget home run epic that Seance promised.
Man, this band really knows how to start a record. "Destination" is a good manifesto and a spectacular opening for this album. It builds and builds until it finally explodes into a sweeping monster. Maybe it's the bigger budget. Maybe it's the vintage late-80's stadium rock production (which, surprisingly, doesn't hinder the record at all). Maybe it's the stepped up roles of Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes. Because really, the only thing most Church fans will recognize on this album is Steve Kilbey's low, breathy baritone. Otherwise, these songs build up, break down, morph and ultimately end up somewhere entirely different from where they began. With manic songs like MWP and Peter Koppes' respective contributions "Spark" and "A New Season" along with Kilbey's "Reptile", you'd think this is the Church's impenetrable prog album. But, the melodies here are consistently the band's strongest and catchiest set ever, as evidenced by Steve Kilbey's gorgeous ballad "Under the Milky Way", which was a worldwide hit in late 1988 (and, being the good fan that I am, I still recognize it as a good song, despite being very overplayed). The band would never again sound as potent and convincing as they do here. Every song has a killer melody and lush, layered, well thought out production to match. One of those rare hit albums that truly deserved the attention it received. A high water mark for the band, which unfortunately they would never climb to again.
~Austin
Still aiming for the stadium, but less excited to be in that stadium, perhaps...
This is basically like a more sprawling Starfish, with the big production sound, but without the melodies and diversity to match it. So, as such things go, it feels a bit redundant. Steve Kilbey really starts to go off the deep end with his lyrics on this album. He's on about some damn thing or another and he never changes his vocals at all, so many of the songs start to sound the same after a while. Couple that with the fact that all of his songs are the EXACT SAME FUCKING TEMPO and you get an hour long album that feels like a three hour long album. Songs like "Terra Nova Cain", "You're Still Beautiful" and especially "Grind", despite its commendable piano breaks that threaten to make things interesting, all feel very bland. So, when someone else steps in to take lead vocals, like Marty Willson-Piper does on the plain old cool "Russian Autumn Heart" (the first and only time an MWP song was an a-side, I believe) or Peter Koppes does on the Johnny Marr-ish "Transient", the full potential of the album is achieved. I know, I know, this is starting to look like the 'I hate Steve Kilbey' home page. Honestly, he does bang out some good ones ("Metropolis", "Essence" and "Laughing" are all decent), but mostly, his writing feels adequate, but not very enthusiastic. But, all in all, it's still a decent follow up to Starfish. I hate it and it's still good. So there.
~Austin
Bye bye, Richard Ploog and the classic Church lineup. Hello, noodly epics!
Priest = Aura, huh? Well, ok... why not Boobs = Sidewalks? Or how about Basketball = Library Card? Because that makes just as much sense. They should have just called it Ridiculous Pseudo-Mythical Ramblings About A Fantasy World That Only Exists In Our Singer/Bass Player's Head Over Some of the Best Music We've Ever Created and Subsequently Ruined, because at least that title would just lay all the cards on the table and you'd know what you're getting into from the start. Drummer Richard Ploog, who had been with the band since the second album I believe, quit after the Gold Afternoon Fix tour and he has been replaced by Jay Dee Daugherty, who is good. But, you're probably not listening to a Church record for the drumming, so unless the guy was awful, you probably wouldn't have noticed. The core trio of Steve Kilbey, Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes is still in place and the musical chemistry between them is bubbling over. Musically, this is probably the band's strongest album. They are back to mostly guitarscapes, but they are applying that big budget, cinematic, layered, lushness to these absolute epics to create a majestic, intricate and ultimately beautiful sound. From the menacing opener "Aura" through the swirling Cure-ish six string bass feature "Paradox" to the nearly ten-minute Chameleons-soudning epic "Chaos", there is, musically speaking, not a bad or even bland song in the bunch. Too bad Steve Kilbey is the singer in this band. Because he single-handedly ruins what would otherwise be the band's best album. No MWP or Koppes songs to be found. Even though they basically sing about the same shit when they sing, at least they have some sort of inflection in their vocals. Not Steve Kilbey though. Whether it's a secret society he's been kidnapped into or a circus-y ramble about witch burnings, he's gonna sound bored out of his mind either way. Only on the instrumental closer "Film" does the squandered potential really shine. Without Kilbey's vocals, it's practically the album's best song. A real shame. And I can't believe some people actually consider this their best work. Musically, yes. The only other time they've sounded this beautifully gloomy was on Starfish. But, overall, no way.
~Austin
The band gets more epic and uber-contemporary with less members. Oh dear.
Dwindling down to the duo of Steve Kilbey and Marty Willson-Piper, this would be their last album with a major label budget. The production gets all super contempo on songs like "Lost My Touch" and the super annoying techno-rock-ish "Angelica", which just feels like the band is piling on the gloss to make up for the fact that they're not really the Church as their audience knew them in the past. It's like they went from musically their best and most interesting album to their most boring and cliched. And I don't get why they try to make the songs all super epic and glossy. Did the first six songs need to have an average length of six and a half minutes? Not really. There's not really any bad songs here, per se. There's just a whole lot of filler. It all sounds pretty good, I guess, it's just not very exciting music. And when you sit through so much blandness, it overshadows something pretty dang cool like the Neil Young-ish "The Maven" (where Steve Kilbey actually drops an eff bomb!). Dah well, Peter Koppes would be back soon enough and the band would get back to making musically great, vocally frustrating albums just as quickly.
~Austin
SOMEWHERE ELSE...
Some US copies of the album were two discs, the second disc being the contents of an EP titled Somewhere Else. It's about half as long as the full length and roughly twice as good. It kicks off with "Drought", a creepy number which is an outtake from the 1987 Starfish sessions and an honest to goodness dance track that works. It's unclear when the rest of the EP dates from, as the notes are incomplete. But, regardless of when they're from, every single song is better than anything on the proper album, recalling a more familiar guitar layer-oriented sound. Which is a shame because the two disc version containing this EP has become somewhat scarce these days. Well worth searching for. Even if it does come with a 70+ minute disaster of an album attached to it.
Discography gap: Magician Among the Spirits (1996). Supposedly pretty good, as Peter Koppes is back on a few songs. I'm afraid of it, honestly. For some reason, I'm convinced that it's even more of a gloss-fest than the last album. Moving on...
Welcome back, Peter Koppes and, by the way, you're our new singer. Just kiddin'. It's still pretty good though.
Maybe it was the label's fault they got all super glossy and shitty. Maybe Peter Koppes is the secret weapon. Who knows? But this album is actually pretty good. Kilbey is still on about nothing, but melodies are interesting again. And sometimes his esoteric weirdness is slightly intelligible, like on "The Great Machine." And Marty and Peter are back to their cool chemistry. There is absolutely nothing that happens on this album that hasn't happened on a Church album before. But man, they are back to playing guitars and building ridiculously lush layers with effects and all sorts of stupid nerdy technical junk. Some stuff on this album, take "Ricochet" for example, sounds like the missing link between Heyday and Starfish. Sure, it's redundant, but it sounds good if you're a Church fan. And the running length is good too: ten songs, about fifty minutes. Perfect. Oh yeah, along with a reinstated Peter Koppes, drummer Tim Powles joined the band full time on this album (he did some songs here and there on Sometime Anywhere and became official on Magician Among the Spirits and started contributing songwriting on this album). This is probably the start of the most recent phase of the Church's sound. Lots of guitar workouts, more noise than ever and a definite purist slant in the band's restraint on their jamminess and indulgences. A relief of an album for fans.
~Austin
BASTARD UNIVERSE...
Some copies of Hologram of Baal came with an extra disc titled Bastard Universe, an all instrumental album. The riffs and the playing are good, but it does become a bit tedious and rambling after a while, because all of the songs are very repetitive and run anywhere between ten and fifteen minutes in length. A good sidenote for fans of the band's guitar work, like me. But certainly not for everyone; even amongst the band's core base.
Discography gap: Magician Among the Spirits and Then Some (1999), A Box of Birds (1999), After Everything Now This (2002) and Parallel Universe (2002). Apparently a very self-indulgent period. Maybe one day. Moving on...
More of the same, but now with better melodies!
Actually a really noisy album. Cool. Not that they've up and gone all Sonic Youth, because there's never any sounds that don't fall into sync with everything else, but there's a good amount of distortion and white noise on here. The Kilbey/Koppes/Powles/Piper lineup has proved to be like the second clasic lineup of the band, as they are able to crank out good-to-semi-great records every couple of years. There's more of a focus on guitar effects with this album and the record as a whole is a little longer (fourteen songs), but the songs are briefer (usually about four minutes), so it never feels rambling. All of the songs are well thought out and performed and it's extra cool to hear them bang out something as lush and layered as "Telepath" this late into the game. Just a really strong album that finds the band sounding like they're actually having fun — something that hasn't been the case for quite some time now. Definitely one of the better records from this later period; and arguably of the band's catalogue.
~Austin
Acoustic reworkings of band classics and a few new songs, all wonderful.
What a surprise this album is! After the noise pop of Forget Yourself, the band went into the studio to record an all acoustic album of past fan favorites and hits. And they do it right. It's way more than just, ok we're playing everything on acoustic guitars. No way. Pianos, accordians, a drum set (played only with brushes!) and a stand up acoustic bass are all added to the requisite guitars for extra texture. Plus, the selection is excellent. You know it's going to be done right when the album starts off with "The Unguarded Moment." Amongst other things from the band's peak period, you get "Almost With You", Peter Koppes takes his vocal cue on a brilliant new piano-led arrangement of "A New Season" and "Under the Milky Way" gets a super slow, super creepy rendition that is aboslutely fantastic and puts up a good argument for being better than the original. Of the new songs, only one is a dud ("November"), while there's one flat out stunner ("0408"). The few inclusions from more recent albums stand up just as well with the old material and when MWP takes lead vocal on "Chromium" (from After Everything Now This), it'll have you wondering if the band's quality ever dipped in the first place. And with the new songs found here, it really showcases the band's newly found (or rediscovered rather) sense of pop classicism. It all sounds so good and works as an album so well on its own, I'd almost say it's the perfect introduction to the Church.
~Austin
Wait a second, here... have they actually gotten better? Again?
Steve Kilbey has finally moved out of his fantasy world! Some of these songs actually make sense! And this thing is shiny and poppy like you wouldn't believe. And it's also their best album, probably since Priest. It's like they've found a way to synthesize all of their different directions and sounds into one super catchy twelve song, hourlong album. And the songs are totally great. From the shoegaziness of "Block" and "Space Needle" to sugary sweet perfections like "Unified Field" and "Day 5", this is definitely the band's most diverse album since Starfish. The middle trilogy of MWP's "She'll Come Back For You Tomorrow" and then Kilbey's two big epics "Pure Chance" and "Never Before" is absolute bliss and a moment of top consistency not experienced since the band's heyday (pun recognized, but not intended), roughly fifteen years previous. It's just a damn fine collection of catchy songs that doesn't feel like the band is catering to anyone in particular, which is quite a liberating thing. Old fans who have gone astray may rediscover what they used to love about the band on this album and it will equally appeal to newcomers, who will soon be converts. A really satisfying record, especially coming this late in the band's career.
~Austin
Another all-acoustic album, another very welcome pleasant surprise.
A couple years after the first one, the band decided to release another all acoustic album of past hits and a couple new songs. I initially raised an eyebrow and gave it the shifty eye, thinking, 'Definitely a cash-in.' On the contrary, my stupid self. It's easily just as good as the last one. In fact, the first five songs here pretty much outdo El Momento Descuidado on their own. I mean, just look at the lineup: within those first five songs, two are from Seance, so you know I'm biased. The new, piano-heavy rendition of "It's No Reason" puts a violin where the children's choir used to be for a really special moment. I mean, it's practically my favorite song by the band and it's just wonderful to hear again in any context. But they really outdid themselves. And right after that is "Reptile" in a really swanky, nearly loungey rendition. Followed up by a sitar heavy reinvention of "Tantalized" that's as psychedelic as it gets, without even trying to be. Holy shit, it's good. A bunch of new songs and a couple incredibly epic revisions of "Pure Chance" and "Grind" later, they again close things out with a new instrumental track and it's all over. But, hot damn, what a great album. Arguably better than the first one. You know an album like this is good when it makes you go back and reevaluate older songs you've disregarded. And that's what both of these acoustic Momento albums do, this one especially. However, in a disappointing move, Cooking Vinyl chose not to release this one domestically, so you'll have to seek out the Australian Liberation Music pressing on expensive import. Well worth it though.
~Austin
