release date: Mar. 10, 1992
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,78]
producer: The Church & Gavin MacKillop
label: Arista Records - nationality: Australia
Track highlights: 1. "Aura" - 2. "Ripple" - 3. "Paradox" - 4. "Lustre" - 5. "Swan Lake" - 6. "Feel" - 8. "Kings" - 11. "The Disillusionist" - 13. "Chaos" - 14. "Film"
7th studio album by The Church following two years after Gold Afternoon Fix (Feb. 1990) and after some time spent rethinking the band's musical direction is a reasonably long affair with fourteen tracks and a total running length of 65 minutes. Drummer Richard Ploog had left the band after the 1990 album and Jay Dee Daugherty, of the Patti Smith Group, had been a substitute on the subsequent tour, and he has now officially become a member of a band who faced another problem as the band's guitarist, Peter Koppes decided to leave The Church just as the album had been finished. However, Koppes agreed to stick around long enough for the end of the band's subsequent tour. Apparently, Koppes had long felt redundant in the creative process, with Steve Kilbey and Marty Wilson-Piper mostly taking control of all relevant decisions.
With the album, we are talking about a decidedly stylistic U-turn, a significant denial of the mainstream appeal the group previously felt pushed into and that's something which clearly separates this one from all of the band's most recent three albums. In relation to the longer-lasting musical quartet called The Church, this album actually marks the end to just that.
With clear neo-psychedelic and experimental tendencies with ambient elements, the release was met with lukewarm reviews and a commercial success that was the appropriate echo. Over time, however, the album has gained a completely different status as something of a game-changer and nothing less than a significant cornerstone in the band's entire discography.
Admittedly, I also dismissed the album myself at the time, just as the majority of critics did in the immediate aftermath of its release, but over the past decades I've bowed in the dust and finally realized the qualities it truly contains. Despite being formed in a time when the band's primary songwriter, Steve Kilbey, found solace in heroin, at a time when he and Marty Wilson-Piper's compositions were heavily inspired by free association and studio improvs - something that must also be seen in contrast to the label's earlier interference in the musical process - in that light, the album actually sounds much of a unified whole, containing many fine compositions. The song "Chaos" (with a length of more than 9 mins.) - reportedly with reference to Kilbey's life situation at the time - may be seen as an example of the new initiatives in relation to songwriting.
Imho, this album is no less than the band's best since the compilation Remote Luxury (1984) - and since Seance (Jun. 1983) when speaking pure studio albums.
Fine recommendation.
[ allmusic.com, Rolling Stone Album Guide 4 / 5, Entertainment Weekly 4,5 / 5, Rolling Stone 2 / 5 stars ]
