LP reviewed in Sounds, 17th July, 1982
THE CHURCH ‘The Blurred Crusade’ (Carrere CAL 140)***1/2 | THE CHURCH, by christening their second album ‘The Blurred Crusade’, provide us with an emblematic image of their music which, like so many churches throughout this troubled parish, is rather Victorian, cloistered and decorative, if vaguely deferential to its avowed progenitors.
And, like the sermons aired in these same churches, the Church often become soporific and academic from the introspective and cocooned nature of their idealistic pursuits, landlocked onto an astral plane of none-reciprocal emotions.
But it’s easy to play devil’s advocate so I’ll play at Good Samaritan briefly and say in recompense that the Church, despite their surplus of pensive (and, fiscally, expensive) tail-chasing, are sometimes teasingly inspired.
‘Teasingly’, I say, because though much of ‘The Blurred Crusade’ possesses a sensual and runny passion, it is ever-smothered by a lifeless breeze, a warm, sticky rain that drains and strains the melodies to baby-food consistency.
The Church | The Blurred Crusade | (Carrere) 1982
The Church’s crusade means reaching drowsily for an outlet for their songs, a catchphrase solidity, that is not quite attained, resulting in a sediment of indulgence and staid musicianship gathering at the bottom of each composition, emphasising the casual and unchallenging half-way watermark of the performance.
Prime impediment to the Church excelling must be the vocals, all monotonal and world-wearied in the extreme, with Steve Kilbey, also the bassist and main songwriter, setting the style.
Placidly droning with no inclination to excite or incite, the singing is a strange bedfellow for the driving harmonics and dry crusts of the twelve and six string guitars that permeate every song to the limit with melodic underlining.
Frustratingly, the Church thwart themselves repeatedly by obviously wasting their mastery of their instruments, never fully exploiting the possibilities they offer, particularly the twelve-string, which is surprisingly flaccid for a group no doubt well acquainted with the inherent power of this now much neglected mainstay of the Sixties bands they seem purposefully, if objectively, to emulate and draw parallels with.
The Church’s sound is peculiarly antiquated yet wholly contemporary, emulsified, mutant folk-rock of a kind, a description plainly deserved for the Dylanesque ‘Just For You’, with its dusty and shimmering guitars and the embryonic complexity of the arrangement is reminiscent of The Who on the verge of ‘Tommy’.
The Church | The Blurred Crusade | (Carrere) 1982
‘Almost With You’ has a bleary-eyed verve, a slow dance of picked and strummed guitars, withdrawn and soft-centred. Aztec Camera’s acoustic drama comes to mind with ‘To Be In Your Eyes’ and, at their best, the Church can affect the sort of subtly strong naivete of the Postcard crew, for The Church are not in the least decadent, merely decorous.
The Church, if you’ll permit a pun, are in need of reformation methinks, because, on the threshold of perfection, with their glistening rain showers of guitar and ponderous, often intoxicating meditations, they lack the crucial motivation to cross the thin dividing line between the going and the real gone.
Trapped cadences, tripped up pieces of mind and technique deserving of more demanding application lead the Church astray and, for the present, subject to change, my stand on this bit of heaven is decidedly agnostic. (Ralph Traitor)
THE CHURCH: ‘The Blurred Crusade’ (Carrere CAL 140)
I PUT a spike into my vein and feel a charge so sharp and sure I must be listening to the second Church LP! But who are The Church and why are these relics from the bygone beat age flirting with mid-sixties psychedelic?
Well, for a start they’re from Australia and if there’s one thing that can burn the best out of a bunch of reprobate surf groupies it’s that bronzing Bondi Beach sun.
But The Church are no frazzled revivalists. Like The Birthday Party, The Cramps, the very wonderfully psychotic Gun Club and perhaps most pertinently, the sadly defunct Soft Boys, The Church are merely built on the foundations of a golden era.
Their actual structure Is inextricably caught up in the humour self-parody, satire and above all, respect, of and for the present. At a time when many leading artists are realising that there are few new musical fields to plough and little left unsaid, The Church too are paying tribute.
By opening and poking among rock’s rich archives, they are leaving themselves free to explore their own ideas and dreams. Soulful Steve Kilbey‘s lyrics are quietly preoccupied with dreams and other related Imagery.
Steve Kilbey’s songs are songs of yearning and celebration, celebrating love lost and hopefully regained. Love songs like ‘Just For You’ and ‘To Be In Your Eyes’; embellished with scintillating guitars (electric, acoustic and 12 string from Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper respectively) and shot through with world-weariest vocals this side of the Only Ones.
If there’s to be any criticism of The Church It’s that their guitar sound is just a little too derivative of McGuinn and The Byrds. But y’know . . .
Finally ‘The Blurred Crusade’ is produced by the heavily in-demand Bob Clearmountain who this year alone has performed similar services for Roxy Music and the Rolling Stones.
Not that The Church need such a superficial seal of approval. I put a spike into these grooves and am intoxicated by songs of strength and redemption. Let us pray! + + + + + (Mike Nicholls, Record Mirror, 24/07/82)
MASS HYSTERIA
Mark Cooper falls pray to The Church
TWO YEARS ago Marty Wilson-Piper left his native Liverpool and went to Australia. Since then he has been gigging constantly in The Church, authors of ‘The Blurred Crusade’, recently released on Carrera.
Weve been slogging our guts out,” says Marty. In Australia it’s s thousand killometres between each city. When we began all four of us travelled In the ex-drummer van, down crappy roads in 100 degree heat without any air-conditioning.
The Church have survived and prospered and Marty has still only seen one kangaroo. a dead one.
The fact that the band come from Australia is both incidental and essential, according to guitarist Peter Koppes.
“Cities are pretty much the same all round the world. The city we happen to live in is Sydney. It might as well be Madrid. There’s less of a mainstream in Australia now. Audiences are more discriminating and there has been pressure to imitate English and American styles. You can no longer say “That’s what an Australian band sounds like’.”
Bands in Australia can still make a living from playing pubs. This is no longer true in England: “I think English music has suffered accordingly,” says Marty. “If you have two solid weeks of gigs, you can experiment a lot and then bring those ideas to the studio . . . “
While there may not be one Australian sound, there is an Australian sensibility emerging in the cinema and music industries, an aboriginal Gothic with psychedelic best displayed in the cinema of Peter Weir.
The Church have definite psychedelic leanings and a style that recall’s England’s Soft Boys and all kinds of American West Coast bands. Naturally, the band prefer to discuss their own individual strengths.
“We are concerned to be neither fashionable nor unfashionable,” says Peter. “We’d like the music to sound as fresh in 1965 or 1995. Steve (Kilkbey the group’s songwriter) would like to be able to listen to his lyrics in 30 years’ time.”
Kilbey’s lyrics and melodies are the immediate focal point of the group, Pete describes them as deep without a meaning.
Kilbey’s subject, according to Pete, is the fate of ideals and the consequences of the romantic view: “Steve does Suffer for the sake of an idealistic view but he doesn’t blame the world. He accepts that he’s often stranded because of an idealistic view.
The Church’s ‘blurred crusade’ will bring them to England in the early autumn. Then we can see Australian psychedelia for ourselves and judge whether the music is timeless or provincial.
One thing’s sure – any band that regularly drives a thousand miles between gigs and plays two weeks on the trot should be able to handle an audience. (Record Mirror, 07/08/82)
THE CHURCH ‘Blurred Crusade’ (Carrere CAL 140) ***
These ecclesiastical ones are, in fact, Australian, but you’d never guess they were anything other than true blue Americana. A strange sort of image, these lads have too.
A curious mixture of psychedelia, pop-metal and strummed acoustics, they’re a tough nut to crack stylistically. Early Byrds influences vie with vocals a la Lou Reed and even (well, quite naturally), a hint of the Psychedelic Furs too.
Curioser and curioser: strangely dated, but meriting further investigation if you’re a lover of quality rock with an early 70s feel. (Noise magazine)
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