There are bands that have been around a fraction of The Church’s near 30-year history and accomplished half as much that are considered by some yardsticks to be legendary. Here’s a fairly good rule of thumb - a band is not legendary when they influence bands within their own scene, but rather when their influence ripples through time like the aftermath of a cosmic explosion. That has been The Church’s legacy since they emerged from Canberra in 1980. The problem, of course, is replicating that feat consistently over the course of a career and The Church, like any great creative entity, has never shied away from the specter of failure in the pursuit of art.
On the aptly titled Untitled #23, The Church travels a hushed path with an almost ambient blend of their patented indie pop psychedelia with paisley dashes of delicate folk and prog for color. While there are clearly glimpses of the forcefully visceral band that dropped jaws with “Under the Milky Way” in 1988 (recently voted the best Australian song of the past two decades in a Melbourne newspaper reader’s poll), for the most part the band creates lovely sonic moods that drift with a gentle purpose, from the ambient prog of “On Angel Station” to the ebb and flow of the whispering rock of “Anchorage.”
There are fleeting moments of the trippy Church of old but overall, Untitled #23 is powerfully sedate. Although it isn’t necessarily a Church work of great influence, it is most assuredly a work that is the culmination of influence across a three decade history of steering trends rather than chasing them.
--Brian Baker [June 24, 2009]
