Photo credit: Nick Semrad
The Church have covered a lot of ground over their 35 year run together, and much of it was foreshadowed on their 1982 sophomore record The Blurred Crusade. It’s not the group’s best album by any means, but it’s the album where their sound began to come together, as they moved beyond the blissful chime of their new-wave era debut into more elliptical psychedelic territory, teasing the guitar lover’s band they’d soon become.
The group played that record in its entirety Wednesday night for a respectable crowd at the Turner Hall Ballroom, as part of a tour behind their latest album, last year’s Further/Deeper, their 20th, depending on how you count. Honoring a 33-year-old album is an odd way to plug a new one, but splitting the show into two sets made for an interesting study in contrasts, illustrating just how the band’s sound has opened up over the last three decades. Compared to their Blurred Crusade set, the new songs they shared were endlessly more expansive, continually pivoting in impulsive new directions. Further/Deeper doesn’t quite rank in the band’s top tier—it lacks the mystery logic of their late-period masterwork, 2009’s Untitled #23—but like the band’s best records it creates its own reality as it goes. It’s the work of a band that’s grown extremely comfortable in their own skin.
They played their biggest hit, “Under the Milky Way,” too, of course, but maybe they shouldn’t have. The Church have been a cult act for so long that most fans showed more excitement for the deep cuts than the hits, and the band couldn’t bring anything new to a song they’ve played thousands of times before. It couldn’t help but feel anticlimactic. Much more satisfying, though, was a soaring rendition of “Metropolis,” their dreamy 1990 modern rock hit. Singer Steve Kilbey noted that the song, now a quarter century old, was the last time the band was on the radio, but there was no bitterness in his voice. The Church enjoyed their brief time in the spotlight, but they much more seem to prefer where they are now, able to do whatever they like, secure in the knowledge they have a fanbase that will be listening no matter what they do.
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