release date: May 31, 1994
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,44]
producer: The Church & (Andy) Dare Mason
label: Arista Records - nationality: Australia
Track highlights: 1. "Day of the Dead" - 2. "Lost My Touch" - 3. "Loveblind" - 4. "My Little Problem" - 5. "The Maven" - 9. "Two Places at Once" - 10. "Business Woman"
8th studio album by The Church released two years after the significant change in style with Priest = Aura (Mar. 1992) may have been released under the moniker of The Church, but a lot has changed since the rock-solid quartet of Kilbey, Koppes, Wilson-Piper, and Ploog released the international breakthrough album Starfish in 1988. The record company was in control when shaping the sound on Gold Afternoon Fix (Feb. 1990), and with the daring '92 album, you saw the first cracks in a quartet that had only been on a rise since the beginning of the 80s. The drummer was replaced, and then guitarist Peter Koppes left after the 1990 album - and for a time he formed the band The Well together with Richard Ploog, among others, and both Kilbey and Wilson-Piper were busy on their own music projects. Wilson-Piper played in the band All About Eve and Kilbey had started the collaboration Jack Frost with Grant McLennan from the Go-Betweens, so that The Church still existed really could be seen as the last convulsions. Arista still stood behind Kilbey and Wilson-Piper, even though the band was in some sort of disbandment. When it turned out that neither new drummer Daugherty wanted to continue, Kilbey and Wilson-Piper met alone and took advantage of having more freedom to shape the music they wanted. In this way, Sometime Anywhere is the result of a new perspective on music created with bold use of drum machine and synths, although there is also room for traditional drums - here played by Tim Powles, who later ended up as a permanent member of the new formation of The Church and he who also features on the second Jack Frost album Snow Job (1995).
Although the album is largely created through improvs and experimentation in the studio, it appears tighter and on the one hand as more closely connected to the band's previous albums than as a direct continuation of the looser Priest = Aura - and on the other hand, it appears as a mix of the band's previous characteristics and by doing so actually addresses the '92 album - or: somewhere in between. Sometime Anywhere has a duration of approx. 77 min. - something close to the absolute maximum for CD releases, and most tracks have a playing length that challenge the traditional three minutes in popular music. Also, there is no focus on single hits, and only one single was chosen for single release: the song "Two Places at Once", which has not charted on any singles charts. Despite positive reviews, the album didn't perform well, and it became the band's final with Arista, who by then no longer saw potential in the band's music.
Unlike the band's previous album, I actually acquired the album when it came out. After a single listen, I thought the band was once again embarking on an exciting development. Afterwards, I didn't listen to it that much - I found it a bit unstructured, but still with a certain originality, although, I could also found it had the touch of a special production, not far removed from U2's Achtung Baby (1991).
In retrospect, the album hasn't aged as one of the band's best, but it's part of the new improvisational approach Kilbey established in the early 90s and which he has since continued in the many musical projects he has been involved in.
[ allmusic.com, Rolling Stone 4 / 5, Q Magazine 3 / 5 stars ]
