release date: Feb. 22, 1982
format: vinyl (CALS 140) / cd (2010 remaster)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,98]
producer: Bob Clearmountain; Chris Gilbey
label: Carrere Records - nationality: Australia
Track highlights: 1. "Almost With You" (4 / 5) (live) - 2. "When You Were Mine" - 3. "Fields of Mars" - 6. "Just for You" (4 / 5) (live) - 8. "To Be in Your Eyes" (4 / 5) - 9. "You Took" (org. video)
2nd studio album by The Church - in Europe the album followed only 1 month after the debut.
Stylistically, the band continues the jangle pop from the predecessor, although it's also clear that this second album is a more coherent release. The Blurred Crusade was for many years one of my favourites by this great Australian band, and what I personally find succeeds here, is the addition of larger and more complex arrangements to an original style, which already here points to a new-found neo-psychedelia, a certain trademark of theirs on all following releases. Apart from that, this album is also better produced.
Without ever being mention, this appears in hindsight as something that could easily be a source of inspiration to a style you would come to hear a few years later in bands like Aztec Camera and The Smiths.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5 stars ]
