THE BLURRED CRUSADE

[Second in a chrono series] The Church's second album finds the band applying a little bit more of their growing proto-progressive sensibilities. "When You Were Mine" shows a greater songwriting discipline and direction than anything thus far. Each section is well-conceived, and compositionally tighter. Essentially, the song is a concise "pulling together" of all they learned from their debut album. "Fields of Mars" includes the band's first overt use of keyboards and "texture," with slight Floydian overtones. And although the band sounds a bit "tentative" in this approach, it is nevertheless a good beginning. "Just For You" is an interesting, almost folk-rock song with a very Dylan-esque lyric structure. "You Took" harkens back to "Is This Where You Live" (from "of skins and heart"), with an extended multi-section song structure. Still a bit "tentative," but clearly learning. (The song also contains sly references to the titles of both this and their debut album.) As with "of skins and heart," the album as a whole has little to recommend it (other than good songs), except that it represents the continued growth of the band.