The Church

by Jason Ankeny
Best known for the shimmering Under the Milky Way, their lone Top 40 hit, the Australian band the Church combined the jangling guitar pop of 60s icons like the Byrds with the opaque wordplay of frontman Steve Kilbey to create a lush, melancholy brand of neo-psychedelia rich in texture and melody. Formed in Sydney in 1980 by vocalist/bassist Kilbey with guitarist Peter Koppes and drummer Nick Ward, the Church recruited second guitarist Marty Willson-Piper before debuting the following year with Of Skin and Heart, an evocative collection highlighted by the ringing The Unguarded Moment, a major success down under.
After replacing Ward with drummer Richard Ploog, the group resurfaced in 1982 with The Blurred Crusade, a stunning effort featuring mature standouts like Almost With You and When You Were Mine. 1983s Seance continued to refine the Churchs atmospheric sound, and the subsequent success of the EPs Persia and Remote Luxury helped earn the band an American deal with Warner Bros., which issued the excellent Heyday in 1986. After moving to Arista, the Church teamed with famed session guitarists Danny Kortchmar and Waddy Wachtel to record 1988s Starfish, their most artistically and commercially successful effort to date. Highlighted by Under the Milky Way, the album also featured the minor hits Reptile and Spark, a marvelous pop blast penned by Willson-Piper.
The follow-up, 1990s Gold Afternoon Fix, failed to repeat the success of its predecessor as the single Metropolis garnered only minor airplay. Ploog left the Church prior to the release of 1992s Priest = Aura, which featured former Patti Smith Group drummer Jay Dee Daugherty; by 1994s Sometime Anywhere, only Kilbey and Willson-Piper remained, recording with the aid of a drum machine. When the album failed to crack the charts, Arista dropped the group from their contract, and with new drummer Tim Powles, the Church issued 1996s Magician Among the Spirits on the tiny White label; a subsequent tour marked Koppes return to the fold. Hologram of Baal followed in 1998, and a year later the Church released the covers collection Box of Birds. After Everything Now This and the double album Parallel Universe both appeared in 2002. The group signed with Cooking Vinyl in 2003, releasing Forget Yourself, a magical collection of new songs that harkened back to their Metropolis days. In 2005 they released Momento Descuidado, an unplugged collection of old and new tracks for the Liberation Blue acoustic series. It was followed by Uninvited, Like the Clouds in 2006.