The Church - "Priest = Aura"/the internet

There's not too many albums where I can immediately recall the time/place/emotional memories of my first listen. I picked up P=A the day it was released in March 1992 even though my CD player was dead-in-the-water. It's a long album and didn't fit on one side of a 90min tape (I did a lot of listening in the car) and my usual sloth and final-year-of-college ennui prevented me from buying a proper length tape and getting a new CD player until April. The upshot was that even though I had the album for over a month, I didn't listen to it completely until April 29, 1992... The day of the LA Riots.

My city is burning to the ground, here why don't I finally listen to the new Church album to take my mind off of things. OOPS! BIG MISTAKE!

These lines in "Chaos" I thought were especially prescient:

"Bang the gavel, it's lawlessness
I can't unravel the knot
Half this wretched town is starving
While the other half are bloated
Everybody hates the bastards in power"

Back to travellin'

evidently

"His gold won't buy him sleep
His poverty runs so deep
In winter he cracks, in summer he warps"

ADRENALIN IS NOT MY MISTRESS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWGFYFGjVaM

^^^ A+++

I just busted this album out yesterday! One of my last acquisitions from episodes of 120 Minutes that I had on tape 20 years ago and never quite got around to buying.

Released 23 years ago today!

The cool thing on this set of material by the Church is that they really lay back on the tempos and drive giving the music alot of space. It's harder to play slow and keep the music interesting and moving, even the old jazz guys will tell you that. That space allows the music to breathe and gives it dynamics, perhaps best illustrated on the title track. I love Koppes solo with the big delay on that tune.

New album is wonderful. Hearkens back to their early '80s run with lots of beautiful gothy synths in the background. Really great.

Had to miss the tour stop here, sadly, but definitely need to catch up to the album.

I picked up P = A from the Salvation Army a few weeks ago and have been pleasantly surprised. I mean, I knew it was a fan favourite but it was where I fell off the wagon as a yoof. (Along with Wish, from the same year, the drowsy jams with long running times I heard via radio were pleasant enough but not something I felt any need to invest in.)

But yeah, it's quite good. Though I would have dropped the opening/title track to get the total running time under an hour. It doesn't do much musically, thereby drawing too much attention to some rather dopey lyrics IMHO.