any of you's heard this yet? i thought forget yourself was pretty good. i'm hoping this one continues that trend despite the awful cover art.

havent heard it yet. i liked forget yourself ok, but it was nothing special. the church have a lot of damn albums.

WHAT THE FUCK...IT'S BEEN 10 MINUTES AND THIS THREAD ONLY HAS ONE RESPONSE???? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE????

Sorry. You were killfiled.


Is Marty Wilson-Piper on this album? Or is he still tearin' it up with the Saints?

i'm starting to wonder!


marty is on this album.

Some of us had actual work to do and couldn't e-spond to e-stone's e-quest e-daquately.

e-sponse:

Yay. Will buy Churchy material asap.

e-ppreciated fROSTED.

Is there anything on par with "Reptile?" If so, I just might be interested.

np: David Bowie - "Looking For Satellites"

No love for After Everything Now This? I love that album. Forget Yourself is kind of bland. AENT did it just right.

Anyone pick up those Australian remasters with the bonus discs? The Starfish set is awesome - it as long as the album itself. Same goes for Gold Afternoon Fix, but I have yet to order that one - these things ain't cheap! The others seem more inessential, however.

Edited to add: guilty admittance that I called Starfish "the Milky Way set." Dammit.

I'll probably pick this up if it sounds very little like Forget Yourself or Sometime Anywhere.

They've done a pretty nice turnaround the last few albums after just about running aground in the 90's - weren't they just down to Steve and Marty on Sometime Anywhere?

So, I am looking forward to this.

I saw them live for the first time on the Hologram of Baal tour (which I love) after digging the Church since the mid-80's. That was honestly one of the happiest times I can recall.

Shamefully I don't own any Church cds, but the prospect of reissues intrigues me. What would you say are their 3 best?

They're one of the bands on my 'iconic Australian bands from the 70s and 80s I need to get my shit together on' list, also including the Triffids, Go-Betweens and more Midnight Oil and Saints

Top 3 Church albums:

Of Skins And Heart (made my Listmania)
Remote Luxury
A Box Of Birds (it's a covers album, but it's perfect in every way)

Definitely check out the first few Midnight Oil records--all the stuff they did before 10 to 1 that didn't get released stateside until the early 90's. The first three Saints records are likewise tops, as is last year's "Nothing Is Straight In My House". I don't think there's a bad Go-Betweens album.

I'd go with:

1. Starfish
2. Remote Luxury
3. Heyday

But Of Skin And Heart, Seance, and Hologram Of Baal are pretty interchangeable in that #3 spot.

Gold Afternoon Fix is a favorite of some, but it's so mellow that it's almost ambient.

The orginal version of the Saints (ie: their first 3 albums) is a whole different beast than the later versions - and even then, the original band was constantly evolving. The debut (I'm) Stranded was a primitive, aggressive variant of Ramones style punk (although the Saints had been gigging since '74 and their sound had been created independent of the Ramones). Eternally Yours mixed that ragged punk approach with a slight touch of rhythm'n'blues. Prehistoric Sounds went even further in that direction. I remember Rolling Stone mag referring to it as a "melodic drone". All 3 albums are amazing for different reasons.

After guitarist Ed Kuepper left the Saints became much more conventional, but still capable of some greatness. A Little Madness To Be Free and All Fools Day are my faves, and both of them dropped any pretense of punk and moved the R&B influence closer to a folk rock sound.

a statement like this really scares me bc i don't own anything by them and hadn't heard of them before this thread. is this a product of my age, ignorance, or geographic situation?

Probably age. The Church kinda dropped off the radar back in 1988.

Worth checking out? allmusic seemed to think highly of them. maybe a riyl?

or is the oeuvre so broad that questions like in my last post are silly

Definitely worth checking out. RIYLs for them are hard though. They prefer the Rickenbacher chime of the Byrds, but you'd never call them folk rock. I dunno, I can imagine someone who loves Roxy Music's Avalon to go similarly apeshit over The Church's Starfish - but the two aren't exactly comparable either.

PMmeforlinkyofnewrecord.

Anybody think this would be a decent place to start?

It's interesting you say that about Roxy Music. I consider myself a fairly huge fan of Brian Eno but somehow I've never heard Roxy Music. If I can say that Eno's first three solo albums are three of my favorites of all time (serious Listmania potential) can I therefore think that I'd probably like avalon and/or The Church?

Not really other than the broad idea that liking Eno shows good taste and Avalon and the church are liked by people with good taste.

I'm not really sure that I'd make the comparison that Radcliffe does to Avalon though. I suppose that the music has a similar atmospheric and textural quality to it but that's really where any comparison begins and ends. I'd make more of a comparison to Go Betweens but with Rickenbacker. If you don't know Go Betweens though that's not going to be very helpful.

Early church is great though and Avalon was a top 20 listmania pick for me so obviously I highly recommend both. I don't have much interest in new church albums though. They'd only steal potential spins from undoubtedly better older church albums.

Of Skins and Heart is probably my favorite album. i dont compare them to the go-betweens really - they are very different. Not really sure who I would compare them to, they have a unique sound.

They have a similar crisp, clean and pristine sound, but Go-Betweens singer-songwriter their jangle whereas The Church ambient up their jangle.

Definitely RIYL one to the other, though the Church often sound more floaty. I've always liked how they can marry such disillusioned and caustic lyrics to such effervescent shimmer.