The Church - ForgetYourself

Thu 19th Feb, 2004 in Music Reviews

The 17th offering from the masters of Australian “space” rock. With a career spanning almost half a century this album sees a return to form of sorts, while grasping the strings of former classics but not quite attaining the the previous intensity and clarity of message of such albums as Priest = Aura and Starfish.

Steve Kilbey’s often dreamy vocals seem to dictate the direction of the majority of the tracks on the album and are strengthened by the ethereal qualities of the Wilson-Piper & Koppes guitar sound that has become the backbone of The Church sound. While this sound has obviously made The Church a leader in the genre I can’t help but feeling the rawness and beauty of early outings such as Skins & Hearts and The Blurred Crusade has been lost much to the detriment of their music.

Kicking off with the building guitar swell of Sealine, you can see the line of the album from the beginning with classic Kilbey lyrical surreality and the choral support of Wilson-piper. Stand out tunes include the driving Lay Low and the seemingly “space” rock anthem Song in Space. I found the middle of the album a little soft with 3 tunes (Maya, Appalatia and June) all
melting into a soundscape that I felt could have been archived with 1 song, as usual their saving light was the gorgeous shining guitar work of Koppes & Wilson-Piper. A real gem comes in the second last track of the album with Reversal which clearly shows The Church still have some new ideas yet, with interesting beats, provocative lyrics and a more unusual, textured sound than most of the tracks. Also noteworthy in the track is interesting and well executed use of effects on Steve Kilbey’s voice.

Having attended the album launch of Forget Yourself at the Metro late last year and hearing quite a few songs from the album performed live, the album was what I expected as The Church have always done a great job of combining both the live and studio sound. It appears on the album that the rumoured bickering and ego clashes within the band (particularly between Kilbey and Wilson-piper) have been put to rest much to its success, but the niggling onstage possibly belies something not so settled? But as I stated earlier I felt they had lost the edginess of their earlier work, which it seemed a lot of people at the venue agreed with when older tunes were met with huge applause and cheering.

A solid effort and definitely continuing on the path to recapturing what was once so firmly theirs to command.