The Church- Untitled #23 (2009) MP3 & FLAC

"On our way to crush the revolution, camp by a lake in the blackened lands, dealing out love and retribution, dealing out the deadman's hand."

While The Church's recent creative resurgence had certainly produced some good albums, most notably Uninvited Like Clouds and Forget Yourself, no one could have suspected that the band had an album like Untitled #23 in them, a psych-rock masterpiece as essential as anything else in their brilliant and expansive discography. Since reforming in the late-nineties, The Church had been slowly moving into more proggy territory and away from the pysch-laced Jangle-Pop of their best known work. While the results were always intriguing, there was a lingering sense of sameness about these albums. With Untitled #23, something of a balance has been struck by returning to the gauzy psychedelia of albums such as Priest=Aura, while integrating the sonic innovations of more recent albums. For example, on "Operetta," Steven Kilbey offers up one of his trademark nuanced vocal performances, treading, as always, the fine line between detached beauty and sublime narcosis, while the band paints a soundscape of restrained yet yearning psychedelic grandeur. This is a song an earlier incarnation of the band wouldn't have been able to pull off quite so evocatively. Conversely, "Dead Man's Hand" sounds like classic Church, catchy, dynamic, and cathartic, though it must be said that the famed guitar interplay between Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper is far more subtle in nature here, going for texture over serpentine exploration. A wonderful surprise from a criminally under-appreciated band.

Untitled #23
 1. Cobalt Blue  (4:16)
 2. Deadman's Hand  (4:28)
 3. Pangaea  (4:05)
 4. Happenstance  (4:25)
 5. Space Saviour  (5:34)
 6. On Angel Street  (6:19)
 7. Sunken Sun  (5:48)
 8. Anchorage  (6:28)
 9. Lunar  (3:25)
10. Operetta  (5:45)

Lossy (MP3@320) 

Lossless (FLAC)