From: Mike Fulmer, fulmer.4@osu.edu
Subject: Another Glowing AENT Review
Date: 2/9/2002 5:44:23 AM
To: Seance Mailing List - The Church, seance@lists.no-fi.com


The Church Comes of Age
by Stephen Slaybaugh

(Columbus Alive, Feb. 7, 2002, Vol. 19, No. 6, p. 21)

Twenty years into its existence, The Church releases its 13th studio 
album this week, the appropriately titled "After Everything Now This" 
(Thirsty Ear). While bearing the neo-psychedelic signposts no Church 
album could be without, the album as produced by drummer Tim Powles 
shows much of the gauze of the band's past work lifted to set the 
swirl of Peter Koppes and Marty Wilson-Piper's guitars in a much 
starker light than before. With 10 of the strongest songs the band 
has written in years, this record is without a doubt the Church's 
most striking album since its "Heyday."

Throughout the record, the band capably hits a balance between its 
shimmering guitar work and quiet reverie. "The Awful Ache" and "Song 
for the Asking," in particular, are stunning in the delicate and 
meticulous manner in which they're played, as well as reveal singer 
and bassist Steven Kilbey exploring a new literate Iyrical voice. 
Even louder tracks like "Numbers" and "Chromium" seem to have been 
given greater care; they are imbued with a sonic richness that the 
band has never this consistently applied. It's as if the heavens were 
in alignment during the making of this record, for in all its 20 
years, the Church has never sounded this splendid.

--

Mike F.