Rocky Rock Bottom's appreciation thread for The Church
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The best Australian band IMO, only the great AC/DC could contend.
A friend's band toured with them in the 80s. They were cool, interesting guys, as opposed to the usual macho, egotistical assholes of Oz rock like Cold Chisel.
Starting with a few of the basics.
Shadow Cabinet - sounds like a Larry Niven space adventure.
Starting to build their timeless, gliding sound in the late 80s:
The glory era of Starfish - Destination, Under the Milky Way, and Reptile. Badger, post that insanely good live video you put up before. Kilbey was sober because he wanted to be.
Mildly famous, based in LA, coked up, and the drummer quits with nothing left in the budget. Might be a couple of salvageable tracks, so long as you don't mind the drum machine.
Russian Autumn Heart, and Grind are good tracks, but the album is one of their lesser efforts. Both are a bit long.
Retreat to Australia and produce their best album. The effortless, time-gliding groove has bloomed. Perhaps the opium was an influence ...
Ripple is the best thing they ever did. Feel and Dome are great pop songs. This album is their timeless masterpiece with a hint of prog. Some really nice drone combined with melodic counterpoint here.
I saw this film about some people who lived in a dome.
Pop doesn't get better.
Kilbey recorded with one of the Go Betweens and got hooked on smack at this point, which brings about part two of our exploration ...
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Gold Afternoon Fix was a very forgettable album. The "fuck to record labels" opener, Pharaoh, was one of the few tracks with some energy.
To borrow a line from a later album, I suspect this was more about "it went out the window, it went up your nose" than "label pressure" or any such issue.
