The Church - any of the congregation here?

I may have greater expectations for a Church album without Marty than I would for a new one that maintained the status quo.

It'll be interesting to see if Kilbey has taken-over song-writing duties in a singular fashion. And if so, will that spell a return to the pop craft of earlier Church albums at the expense of the [wonderful] atmospheric interplay of their more recent group-composed efforts.

I also have to say that with Koppes and Powles holding down the fort, the scheduling conflicts or politics or bad blood or whatever that came between Kilbey and Marty... it wasn't all one-sided. There's no good guy or bad guy in this. I'm sure there's a lot of emotion involved and whatever made MWP "unavailable" may have seemed self-centered to the other members... something he should have canceled for the good of the band. But he didn't and that's that. We'll be getting a new album and I'm happy for that.

I enjoy Kilbey's side-projects and solo efforts, but he brings a different game to the table with The Church.

 

I'm surprised it's that much cheaper. Thanks for the tip. And it was much easier to negotiate their website than it was in the past.

 

For those who may be interested, I've written a review of "A Psychedelic Symphony: Live at the Sydney Opera House". I think it's a fantastic live album.

http://volt-and-volume.com/albums/a-psychedelic-symphony-the-church-album-review/

 

Nice job. Thanks for that.

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Thank you. My pleasure. Love this band.

 

Where's the vinyl?

 

Anyone else having a tough time ordering from the online store? I've ordered from the past with no issues, but keep getting error messages this time around! Just emailed customer service for a 2nd time, hopefully they can figure it out.

Sorry this is my 1st post in this thread; a b@tch about ordering! I am a big fan of the band & have been lurking in this thread for a few years now! Great to see this thread (and band) still going. Too bad MWP is not along for the new album, but hopefully this is just a chapter in the bands story! I'm optimistic about the album, but seeing them live without MWP would be strange!

 

For a cd??? Wow, that is serious coin.

FWIW, the download on iTunes is $9.99 (yeah, I know, I know....).

 

It's between $30-40 new on Amazon right now, I'll bet Newbury Comics is towards $40 on it. They don't seem to do very well with import prices these days. I'm looking forward to the DVD more though, I really dug the Future, Past, Perfect DVD, it still gets played a lot.

 

Unfortunately that's around what us Aussies pay for CDs . We have been getting totally ripped off for years that you become conditioned to that being the price.....so much that so I didn't think twice about the cost

 

Newbury Comics used to have an excellent selection of Church cds, but now they usually just have a used copy of Starfish. I even found the Acoustic Series ones there a few years back.

Sorry to hear that - I knew music fans in Japan always had to pay a premium but I didn't know that about Aussies having to as well.

 

I received Psychedelic Symphony yesterday and it is a wonderful live album. I'm not a great fan of live albums, but a special event like this is tailor made for it.

Well worth the money. And it was fairly priced on the band's website. I didn't have any trouble ordering it.

 

I got mine (ordered from the band web site) over the weekend, too. It's a great live album! For the most part the symphonic arrangements work well. The one exception, IMHO, is "Lost." On the original Starfish album it has an awesome descending bass line that is replicated in the next bar by keyboards. This live album would have been a great opportunity to replace those keyboard sounds with an orchestra. Instead, they created this lavish, over-the-top symphonic accompaniment for the song that sounds like something from "The Sound of Music." It's overdone.

That's a small quibble, though. These songs really sound great and it's definitely a worthy addition to the Church catalog!

 

Got into The Church around the time of Starfish thanks to a high-school buddy- have all of the original Aristas but lost interest around Box of Birds. Still regularly listen to all the old stuff & SK's solo The Slow Crack. Just brilliant, amazing wonderful stuff! I'm sad to hear the remasters have been cranked to 11...I pretty much won't buy a remaster of anything now unless 1) the original release is truly horrible or 2) I check the forums on the general consensus...

 

Welcome to the Forum... and one of the coolest rooms in the house.

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Steve Kilbey has just agreed to do a Q&A with me for my music review website. The purpose of the article is to introduce The Church to a new audience regardless of age groups. The article will also include an introductory playlist. I'll create a link as soon as it has been posted on Volt & Volume.

 

Thank you Louis!

 

Anybody have any updates on the new album being worked on? Kinda hanging out a little bit......

 

No real new info. The band has started scheduling some festival dates around Australia for later in the summer and have a new promo photo with the new guitar player.

http://themusic.com.au/news/all/2014/07/16/the-church-seekae-voyager-among-40-new-bigsound-acts/

 

^^ Should be out by the end of the year, I would think (hope).

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Cheers Louis
I had this idea of boycotting the album because of the MWP situation but I've sort of come around to at least give it a listen, and if any good......buy it

 

I've got this spinning, right now.
Just an incredible bunch of songs, performed wonderfully, captured beautifully, and mixed/mastered/pressed fantastically.
This record is timeless.

 

I must find/get that on Vinyl!!

 

I certainly highly recommend it!
I started with it on vinyl (in 1988), then only listened to it on CD for decades. When I pulled the vinyl back out, I was blown-away by how much more I appreciated it.
I just caution to avoid the record club issue, as it sounds rubbishy. The proper Arista (US) issue, however, is a total gem!