Fricke’s Picks: High Holy Daze

Aug 8, 2009

“Please check the contents of your head,” singer-bassist Steve Kilbey of the Church announced in his slow-rolling-wave baritone during the Australian band’s New York gig on July 8th. “Items may have shifted during flight.” Only for the better. For nearly 30 years, the Church’s heavenly-treble raptures – driven by charter guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper – have been one of rock’s most dependable and still-evolving trips. The set list that night captured the constancy and mutation, going deep into the gothic-Byrds peal of 1982’s The Blurred Crusade amid the stately-reverb suspense of “Deadman’s Hand” and the creeping-pop poise of “Pangaea,” both from the new untitled #23 (Second Motion). A hypnotic enigma of measured pace and mounting-ring dynamics, the album is, in fact, the group’s 23rd – a genuine milestone in longevity and psychedelic invention.”