The Church, Forget Yourself

Every small town used to have its hip record store, run by college dropouts who were looking for a volume discount on punk rock and one-hitters. The Lost Chord down in Mankato is where we first came across the Church, twenty years ago. They were Australia’s answer to the Psychedelic Furs and Bauhaus, hidden away in the import bins in heavy plastic sleeves. Theirs were lush, melodic productions full of stark and stylish images—and the records sounded pretty good too. After all these years, we suddenly realized that they’ve been chugging along without our involvement. We’d caught wind of this disturbing fact with last year’s After Everything Now This, and now they’re releasing album number seventeen. (Seventeen!) Not a lot of bands hang around that long, and they usually manage to do so only by going through a few drastic overhauls and makeovers. The Church, though, have stayed true to their original charter of jangly, moody, melodic alt-rock. In the absence of Echo & the Bunnymen, the Feelies, and a dozen other seminal art bands of the eighties, we’ll keep throwing into the Church’s offering plate.