Album reviews of The Church
Outdated material, if you can't tell. I haven't habitually listened to The Church's music in years. This is here for posterity.
Hello and welcome to my paean and criticisms of the Church albums and EP's I own or have owned, unlike other sites devoted to The Church, I'm not going to list biographical information on the various band members, tour dates, side projects, release dates of material in each country or labels signed to or other minutiae.
This is a pure and simple review of their work; song by song where applicable. I have not listened to any albums after Hologram of Baal. I've only listened to that one sparsely but I've included a picture of most of the album covers for reference.
I've listened to samples from these other albums I don't own, courtesy of places like the BBC and quite liked some of it, especially that on Forget Yourself. When time and funds allow, I'll get hold of them.
Without any further ado, here goes.
Of Skins and Hearts
The band's first album, and by far away their most rockiest, so to speak. There's a tinge of inchoate grunge among the nine tracks on this album, reminiscent, in a paradoxical way, of stuff that was to happen a decade later. The band are still finding their feet here musically and lyrically, the first track For A Moment We're Strangers is a pretty straightforward rocker, full of chug-chug twin guitar attack, a damn good opener.
Chrome Injury, more chug-chug, with a few complex hooks and a chorus that is a touch off-putting from the main beat of the song itself. Followed by the hit The Unguarded Moment, a song that sold well in Australia and still gets decent airplay. Personally, I'm sick to death of this song; to me it's very much a flogged horse. The accompanying video of the four of them in a warehouse seen through color treating and slow motion is a visual bore as well.
Memories in Future Tense is almost metallic, grind, grind, grind, and, apart from Fraulein, probably the heaviest song The Church have done, closer for the first side is the lovely Bel-Air, Kilbey almost laughs as he sings this melodic daisy of a tune. Song six is the monotonous and metronomic Is This Where You Live. Like a lot of their songs, it starts off slow, and goes seriously up-tempo midway, Bel-Air, and Roman are similar in structure.
Then comes the antsy and near-funky She Never Said; Kilbey sounds like he's trying to make some point on this song, hmm, I wonder if he remembers what it was? Korean War, Fighter Pilot is song number 8. Pretty rollicking tune, quasi-political and -social sort of lyrics, nice hooks and in possession of some of the chug chug of earlier songs, the finisher is Don't Open The Door To Strangers, slow and sonorous, much like OMD's The Lights Are Going Out, but nowhere as soporific. Kilbey sounds like he's trying not to laugh here as well, like he said in Hindsight's liner notes, a good song to finish the night.
Summary. A good and solid debut, but lacking the polish, structure and musicianship of later efforts.
On to Sing Songs and The Blurred Crusade