FORGET YOURSELF

[Thirteenth in a series] (Note: Prior to releasing "Forget Yourself," The Church released a two-disc CD entitled "Parallel Universe." The first disc contains techno "remixes" of songs on "After Everything Now This," done by various people, and is, to my mind, unlistenable. However, the second disc contains six new songs from the AENT sessions, and is highly recommended.) / Although it is gratifying to see this album called "so different" and "the first album of the new millenium justified to have been recorded in it" (high praise indeed!), there is actually little on this album that was not presaged by "Hologram of Baal" and "After Everything Now This." That said, "Forget Yourself" IS an exceptional, immensely creative, virtually flawless album that shows yet again that The Church has become one of the chief standard-bearers of the prog-rock genre. / "Sealine" launches us immediately into a textured atmosphere as dense as anything the band has ever created, with fuzzed-out echo-guitars and treated drums, a radical chord progression (there are quite a few on the album), great guitar work, and a strong vocal from Kilbey, delivering yet another brilliant song-poem. "Song in Space" (a fave, with yet another amazing Kilbey song-poem) is a sound-filled composition full of retro-60s psychedelia, with hints of Beatles, Cream, and Moody Blues, filtered through the band's unique approach. "The Theater and Its Double" opens with one of the most wonderful guitar/drum beat figures the band has yet employed, moving into a quasi-arhythmic chorus section of arpeggiated guitar and breathy, hypnotic vocals, and ends with some great guitar work. "Telepath" opens with the band's most beautiful harmonies to date, moving into a nice arrangement of arpeggiated guitar, a nice drum figure, solid bass, and (need I say it?) yet another brilliant Kilbey song-poem, all surrounded in a dense atmosphere, especially in the middle and end sections. "See Your Lights" is a slight more straight-ahead light rocker propelled by dual guitars, solid drumming and bass work, and a truly neat guitar figure separating chorus from verse. "Lay Low" (another fave) opens with a bizarre keyboard, a neat guitar figure, and solid bass and drums, and quickly becomes one of the band's most compelling arrangements, with off-time drumming in the verses, stop-and-start vocals, and a powerful, sound-filled chorus that is uniquely The Church. "Maya" is a textured ballad, beautifully executed in a classic Church arrangement, with verses reminiscent of "Tranquility" (from "Hologram of Baal"). Recalling both "Louisiana" and "Buffalo" (from "Hologram of Baal"), "Appalatia" is a gorgeous arrangement (and another fave), and possibly Koppes' best work, including his strongest-ever vocal. "June" is a strange, almost solemn ballad with a straight-ahead approach. "Don't You Fall" - a nice, if mildly paranoid, light rocker - is a true Church original, harking back to their "Heyday" and "Starfish" period. With a similar opening figure to "Dome" (from "Priest=Aura"), "I Kept Everything" (yet another fave) has a fabulous Kilbey song-poem, supported by a beautiful arrangement of echo-guitar, great bass work, and heavily textured atmosphere. "Nothing Seeker" opens with powerful bass work, wild wah-wah guitar, heavy drumming and ultra-texture, and has a quick-stop chorus and a wild finish. "Reversal" (yup, another fave) has one of the band's best-ever textured arrangements, including a neat Beatle-esque bridge, and some of the best vocal textures the band has created. "Summer" (another ballad heavily reminiscent of "Tranquility") closes the first disc in true Church style with a beautiful, heavily textured, sound-filled arrangement, including an increasingly present grand piano. (Needless to say, as with any album containing heavily-textured music, this should be listened to first with headphones. And the first time it is played externally, it should be played loud.) / Not content to leave well enough alone (thank God!), The Church included a bonus disc featuring three additional compositions. It is in the first of these that the band does something truly extraordinary: they add to the lexicon of sound textures possible using standard instruments and studio tricks. With the 14-minute experimental instrumental, "Serpent Easy," the band proves that not every possible sound/texture has already been created and/or used by Pink Floyd, Moody Blues, Yes, Genesis et al. Opening with a "2001: A Space Odyssey"-type rumble, the band moves through a succession of sounds and textures that run the gamut from fairly ordinary to highly creative, to absolutely mind-blowing. (Note that I do not recommend listening to this while under the influence of any hallucinogenic substances!) "Cantilever" is an extended composition with a neat, quasi-experimental, sound-filled arrangement, plus a truly great Kilbey song-poem, delivered using some of the strangest vocal inflections he has ever used. "Moodertronic" is a respectful nod to Frippertronics, with a couple of repeating guitar figures, plus a lightly synth-textured, Eno-esque atmosphere. / Although I am not prepared to call this the definitive Church album - and, although I want to, I'm not going to suggest that the band won't ever be able to top it, since I've been wrong not twice but thrice in this regard - there is no question that the sheer creativity on "Forget Yourself" is phenomenal, that the album may in fact set a new bar for the band, and that it belongs in any important collection of prog-rock. (As an aside, has anyone considered what the "real" name of this album is? Also, any thoughts as to what all the phrases on the insert refer to?)

After the quite nice and more acoustic album After Everything Now This in 2002 this legendary and much underrated australian band is releasing with their 17th album Forget Yourself their best album ever. In contrast to every other band that started in the 80's these guys were not deteriorating on their CDs over the years and decades but instead becoming better and better. With this album they would actually deserve to be accepted as an important band in progressive psychedelic Rock.

THE CHURCH have been releasing consistently solid albums over a period of more than 20 years without ever gaining the attention and success they would have deserved and did their music during all this time exclusively for their own and their die-hard fans. One of the reasons for this could be the fact that their music does not fit properly in any preformed category making it maybe really progressive in a literal sense in some way. On the other hand their music sounded on most of their albums in the past always more like 80's Indie Rock merged with some floydian space elements. Usually when I'm listening to some previous albums of them bands like Jesus And Mary Chain, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Verve or U 2 are coming immediately to my mind since their music is as well very much guitar dominated. But these are just my own thoughts and they don't have to be correct necessarily.

Coming back to the main topic that is Forget Yourself: The songs on this album actually were recorded during "live" studio sessions and one can easily hear this. They are sounding rough in some way and much more powerful than on any previous album, almost like they would have had some rejuvenation or would have taken some "magic potion". The first song Seaside is showing clearly that the sound has changed compared to previous albums. We hear a heavy bassline, distorted guitar licks by Willson-Piper and of course Kilbey's vocals stronger than ever in the focus of everything. Song In Space is another very strong track, which sounds really spacey with guitar melodies floating high above the ethereal vocals, bass and cymbals. The Theatre And Its Double and Telepath continue in the same vein, real great Space Rock indeed. See Your Lights reminds a bit to their earlier stuff, but sounds much heavier and more "up-to-date" and Kilbey's sardonic vocals sound better than ever. Lay Low has quite a strong industrial goth rock feeling and it's again a very strong track. Actually on the whole album there is only one track which is a bit weaker than the rest, that is Reversal. The use of vocoders sounds too much "forced" to me and too "popular" since this effect has been used already extensively in pop songs.

As a CONCLUSION I'd like to say that Forget Yourself is for sure the best album THE CHURCH ever released, although I'm hesitating a bit to call it a masterpiece in Prog. Unfortunately the band is in some way in a very unlucky situation. They neither succeeded ever in the Prog genre, probably because their music has a too strong Indie Rock character, nor will they harvest any appreciation even with this very good record in the over-saturated (with crap of Spears and the alikes) Pop Rock market since for this they are simply too good. Without any doubt this one deserves 4 stars.

3.5 stars.THE CHURCH are a band I knew about in the eighties but I didn't actually own any of their records until I got this one. There is a psychedelic and dreamy element to the music throughout this album, and the vocals really remind me of Bono at times.

I like the first track "Sealine" quite a bit but admit those Bono-like vocals are hard to get past. Great music though, I really like the raw sounding guitar and the beat. "Song In Space" is sort of spaced out for the most part. Quite psychedelic. "The Theater And It's Double" is the best one yet. I like the jangly guitars and the vocals sound better to me. It calms right down a minute in. Contrasts continue. Check out the guitar 3 1/2 minutes in. "Telepath" opens with harmonies almost sounding like the BEACH BOYS before it settles in. I like the sections where they get more aggressive. "See Your Lights" opens with picked guitar before it kicks in with almost whispered vocals. Some nice bass in this one. "Lay Low" is haunting to open as bass then this psychedelic mood comes in. A heavy beat follows then it gets spacey as vocals arrive. Cool tune. One of my favs.

"Maya" is a mellow tune that's well done. Some orchestral stuff too. "Appalatia" is a top three track. It reminds me of another band i can't think of. Kind of dreamy with some nice guitar at times. "June" has this steady beat with synths and vocals. I like it. "Don't You Fall" has some good harmonies and guitar in it. A top three for me. "I Kept Everything" is a psychedelic tune that's fairly slow paced until it picks up after 2 minutes briefly. "Nothing Seeker" has these deep bass sounds with spacey ones playing over top. A beat comes in then vocals join in.The spacey sounds continue. Good tune. "Reversal" has higher pitched vocals and lots of spacey sounds. A beat comes in. Very psychedelic. "Summer" is a dreamy tune with reserved vocals. It's all pretty slow paced throughout.

I've listened to this many times but to me it's not worth 4 stars. Good album though and I will be checking out more of their recordings.

This is now my fourteenth review from this band, and the music played during all these years (twenty two) has not changed very much. Album after album, the same sort of experience is on the rendezvous.

Nothing wrong, but nothing passionate either. The band also feels obliged to release quite long albums (over an hour for this one). It is fine when the music sounds fresh and inventive, but when it is repetitive, with little emotion, average song writing as well as sub-par melodies it IS very, very long indeed.

I won't describe a track by track review since this would be a carbon copy of preview reviews, always mentioning the same sort of influences or genre, absence of feeling and an overall (too) melancholic impression.

In all, this album is not a bad one; only inoffensive (although "Appalatia" is quite weak) and I rate it with three stars. This is an album to listen to while having a good glass of wine in front of your chimney during a quite autumn evening? Nothing wrong, but nothing passionate as I told you already.

Eh, I dunno guys - isn't The Church beginning to sound a lot like the Flaming Lips or Mercury Rev at this point? Sure, sure, all three bands in their own way are peers in the neo-psychedelic scene and The Church marked out this territory well before the others did - but on Forget Yourself their sound seems to be increasingly shifting towards riding the bandwagon established by those other groups and their imitators. Whilst growing out of their early jangle pop style was doubtless the right move, and the material here is perfectly competent, I can't help but feel like I'd rather listen to Magician Among the Spirits or The Blurred Crusade again instead of this.