REVIEW: The Church, Hologram of Baal (Thirsty Ear)
- Joe Silva
Just as most of the alternative set were grooving along to Starfish, The Church's 1988 high watermark LP, the band told Rolling Stone of all people that there music was better understood by those who already been...er...um.."experienced." It essentially was a bang on statement that the video to the album's killer track ("Under The Milky Way") made indisputably clear. But while the band was busy circling the globe a couple of times to capitalize on the LP's achievement, they forgot to jot down "write more material while the getting is good..." into their tour agendas. From there on, the partnership between core members Peter Koppes, Marty Wilson-Piper, and Steve Kilbey failed to come up with an ultra-successful blend of pop and this undiluted psychedelia that could continue to make good on their brief success.
While never having been completely inactive, the band return again now with a fresh label deal and yet another set of guitar dreamscapes to promote. But while the songs are still lush and still wonderfully trippy, Hologram of Baal may not quite be the comeback record that the band have hoped for. Launched with an intriguing assortment of electronic quivers and pulses, "Anaesthesia" begins like a transmission from some otherworldy coop where the band and their muse have been set to rust. But almost instantaneously, the song falls into a mid-tempo grind that the LP really doesn't escape thereafter. The melodies are so often wispy that even when the choruses might have some flesh about them, they aren't asserted with a sufficient amount of vim to capture your attention for long. Kilbey's singing still has that pleasant abstract Dylan-esque quality to it, and Piper is still quite handy at generating big atmospheres, but beyond that most of these tepid numbers never sufficiently warm the album's jets enough to help it sustain flight.
