The Church - Sing Songs and The Blurred Crusade
Sing Songs
The band released this 5 song quickie not long after recruiting drummer Richard Ploog. It contains four original songs and a fairly decent cover of the Simon and Garfunkel anthem I Am A Rock.
The Chris Gilbey produced originals are sparsely engineered, with the drums way back in the mix, and the guitar sounds are very thin. The EP feels like a demo that was given major label release. Only I Am A Rock, produced by Bob Clearmountain, sounds like a concerted and properly-engineered studio effort.
I no longer own this EP, though I have the songs in various formats. As such, I cannot remember the order they came in, Ancient History is a rhythmic little number, with cute sampled mouthings in a the background. The Night is Very Soft, which appeared on Hindsight as well, is a smooth and sure track, with an overdub preceding each line of the song.
Kilbey feels amused in this song as well; wonder if he'll share the private joke? A Different Man is a great song; catchy and moody with Kilbey telling us the happy tale of the title. Great video of the band out
in a park too.
In This Room is the EP's dark moment. Kilbey cannot get through to a former lover. Start and softto begin with, and fades much the same way, with a chorus discordant and jarring. The EP's best song by the length of the street.
Summary. Essential filler. This EP was re-issued recently with the Remote Luxury/Persia combo. There's some great music here even if the garage-band quality production doesn't do it justice.
The Blurred Crusade
Well, well, the band's second effort is as far removed from their first musically and stylistically as Rush's debut was from their 1985 release Power Windows. OK, here come the adjectives: lush, expansive, dreamy, orchestral, resounding, echoing, elusive, The Blurred Crusade benefits from a big time production from Bob Clearmountain, and also benefits from a cohesive thematic structure.
This album has a much more solid and defined feel to it than its predecessor. The album starts off with the archetypal Almost With You, complete with Spanish guitar solo and fleeting lyrical quality.
Personally I don't much care for this song. It seems a shame that the songs that made it for The Church seem to be their worst, but then again - that's me. When You Were Mine is a straight ahead rocker, more polished than the pseudo-grind of any similar song on Of Skins and Hearts, Fields of Mars is a glorious song!
Slow, thunderous, cavernous and entirely melodious, Marty Willson-Piper gets to warble his vocal chords here on this one, this album is worth buying simply for this song with its end of the world dying fall quality.
An Interlude starts out exactly that, then develops nicely into an over the mountains and far away dream rocker; Secret Corners is short and sweet, but full of uplifting hooks and twirls.
Just For You is the second best song on the album, a full blown love paean, starting with Kilbey practising his guitar and getting up to answer the door, the door opens and so does the music, a nice and charming touch. It truly is a simple, yet poignant mid-tempo hail to the joys of dedication.
A Fire Burns is a stratospheric rocker with booming drums and chiming guitars, To Be In Your Eyes is a quiet and laid back tune; strums along blissfully but never to the point of becoming elevator music.
You Took is an epic, a near-9 minute long exercise in call and follow musical technique, with Kilbey repeating his choruses a la Morrissey. The guitars soar somewhere near the ionosphere in this one too. Don't Look Back is the album closer, and like Secret Corners, it is brief, with a sort of wobbly beat to it. Not a bad way to close what is a great and magnanimous disk.
Summary. A masterpiece, not their best, but damn close.