The Church
Untitled #23

By Doug Collette

May 27, 2009

3 1/2 stars out of 5

Any musician with a well-defined style must also be the consummate recording artist to prevent with each successive recording from sounding like mere repetition of it predecessor. The Church are artists of just that caliber and their latest album, Untitled #23, bears evidence to those high standards.

"Cobalt Blue" is a somewhat unsettling start, if only because guitars almost but not quite take second place to the oozing synthesizer. But "Deadman’s Hand" is more like the real Church: the sounds of fretboards intertwine ever so slowly to introduce, then support, Steve Kilbey’s whispered vocals. Tim Powles' foursquare drumming lends further shape to the track.

Elsewhere, song structures provide accessibility though individual tracks are less important in the context of Untitled #23 because the cuts flow in and out of each other as if in a dream. The Church, however,  know how to add just the proper flourishes to maintain the album's momentum (dreamlike as it might be): Peter Koppes’ acoustic guitars chime in on "Pangea" as do ghostly vocal harmonies that enlarge the soundscape, while there's actually an electric solo from Marty Wilson-Piper on "Sunken Sun.”

Because there is no replication here of the Australian group’s sole hit, “Under the Milky Way Tonight,” nothing on this recording is going to reach out and grab any listener--though "Space Savior" comes close as it's almost upbeat and "Anchorage" likewise finds the band in unison playing and singing with a (languorous) verve like nowhere else on the ten tracks. The latter is an especially artful setup for the two-part conclusion "Lunar" and "Operetta."

Introspective perhaps to a fault, the music of The Church on Untitled #23 is as addictively insinuating as the best of their previous work.