From: Kevin J. Bonham, sleepycat@eudoramail.com Subject: AENT review [long] [ spoilers] Date: 2/2/2002 9:12:11 PM To: seance@lists.no-fi.com The following review appeared in "The Oxydentist", the official newsletter of the Oxydental Fan Club (circulation zero): ------------------------- The Church After Everything Now This There are no baby serpents on this record. It sucks. 2/5. ------------------------- Seriously, all IMHO ... My first experience of the album was extremely strange. On my first listen I got to "After Everything" and felt like crying all through the song. Music does not normally affect me in this manner - the odd thing sends emotional shivers down my spine but nothing more. Rest of the album was fine. Played it again, exactly the same thing happened. Hours later having dinner at some friends' house I became extremely tired and teary for no reason at all - not emotionally unhappy or anything, and ended up having to go to bed early with a nasty fever, swollen glands and a tendency to burst into tears for no reason without even being unhappy. Some kind of very strange flu, we think. 16 hours later it seems to be much better. Played the album another couple of times while I'm feeling better to try to get a more neutral opinion of it. I think it's mostly excellent, though dangerously close to off-balance. I like it far more than MATS and HOB. Church albums with not a lot of rockers are never entirely popular with the fans and this one may get a lot of the same criticism as SA for this reason. This is one of their most weighty albums, solemn and serene and at times almost too sad. Like P=A it has a mood all its own but unlike P=A (where it takes a while to pick out the common feel from a very diverse album), on this one the mood is everywhere right from the start and there is no escaping from it. Numbers: A fiery opener with lots going on, I stand by my high opinion of this. Pleased to see the production on the rest of the album is not quite as fuzzy and muddy - on this song they more or less get away with it, but on some of the others it would have been a major handicap. The next four tracks in a row, however, are better ... After Everything: Too perfect. So beautifully sad. There's a fair bit of recycled Hotel Womb in there, and it also reminds me of the Underground Lovers' wonderful "Losing It" which I know Steve has praised in the past. The Awful Ache: Unbelievable guitar work - I'm assuming that incredible noise at the start is Peter? Another sad tale - my interpretation is that he meets her when she's drunk, she doesn't recognise him or care when she's sober, he dies, etc. (Either that or they're both vampires ...). Love the way Steve sings "the sad old trees", could listen to that all day. No wonder the reviewers are spouting cliches about "goth" with the subject matter of this one. Song for the Asking: Powerful bluesy track with very strong vocal from Steve. More heartache but this time countered with defiance and sarcasm. Chromium: Brilliant stuff from Marty. Breathless and exhilirating, always changing. Necessary to break up Steve's sombreness after the first four tracks but at the same time, completely fits with the rest of the album (something Marty's contributions have often failed to do). Perhaps should have been longer. Love the way Marty sings "this one intrigues me". Radiance: I'll be honest here, I really can't stand this at all. I still don't get what he's trying to do here - just tell a straight story or make some kind of comment, and if so what is it? I am also still not sure about the pace of this song. It could have been exciting I find much of it drunken and creaky. It has pretty patches, but I doubt I'm ever going to really like it. I guess this song and I just don't get on. Reprieve: Now I see why "Undo" was a B-side - this is similarly long and messy - not quite as messy and uneven but not very interesting either. Not sure what to make of this, maybe too long - guitar duel at the end (although not as good as the one on "The Maven") lifts it above B-side standard but overall a fairly boring track to me. Night Friends: Looks like Pink Floyd got on the album by mistake. No, seriously, I really like this one, grave and spacey and weird. The vocals in the verses are unusual and will be controversial. I think they're great, but others have already disagreed. "Loving, we've been loving/ But sometimes hate is better/ You can't keep out the killers with love, man/ Hating, we've been hating/ But only love can heal up the hate " Too true. Seen it Coming: More sadness but with a kind of bravery about it that I find very admirable. I thought this was excellent when I first heard it. Amazingly with some of the company it's keeping, it seems almost joyous and poppy on this record. Invisible: Given the rest of the album it surprises me that Steve does not sing the chorus with any kind of sadness - "All I ever wanted to see, was just invisible to me" - he sings it just as a statement of fact. The rest of the song has a certain lack of melody, it sounds like Elvis Costello crossed with Enya, it's really just a poem set to music, but the very high quality of the lyrics justifies it: "Sifting tiny diamonds on his shaky metal islands/Where he often claims asylum from the structures left behind" etc. This reminds me of the talents he displayed in tracks like Midnight in America, Don't Move, It Could Be Anyone, Magician Of The Spirits, but this time the subject is not quite so surreal. I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts on what these characters have to do with each other. We know that the woman is travelling on a train to meet some man who is waiting for her, but is nonetheless a stranger - why? I like this little story as a closing track because it gives the li Oxydental: I wish. No prises for guessing which track I would throw off either. ;) Cheers, Kevin. --- Self-Appointed President, Oxydental Fan Club Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com