Ooops, should have posted this here.

untitled 23# is like an old vinyl release. Here is how I percieve it. I love the Church and this is possibly the best release of their 29 years as a band.

The first side

Cobalt Blue

I thought of Painkiller in the first fifteen seconds but was transported with the guitar instantly. Beautiful, and enticing, an amazing opener. Sounding like a wet summer field with life exploding everywhere. The lyrics are subtle and Steve delivers them like it's what his throat grew for.

Classic Church. If those bed-wetters, Coldplay, had this as their opening track with Eno producing, they'd still f*cking blow it 'cause they're useless. Here it sounds like essence, and already developed and written 500 years before delivery. The guitar bit towards at the three minute mark comes in tentatively in answered whispers, but then bursts with energy of cosmic proportions, coiled and sublime. Sounds like a glass plectrum springing through a valve, with shards splintering along the edge of each string scrape. Not only does it fill my head with light but it could still have been written in fifty years time.

Dead Man's hand

I don't know how to say this, but I think I've been there before. On the way to something, sometime, somewhere. When I listen to this I want to put my head back. It reminds me of the eternal cyclic nature of living. God, it sucks me in. A tapestry of guitar clusters with mesmerising lyrics keeping them focused in a blurring. Deeply enticing, and darkly real. The horrors of Iraq somehow form. More cowbell?

Pangaea

Sublime, and simple in its own complexity. A chance to open the curtains, throw the windows wide and let the sunlight flood in. The whole world compressed into one song. I wonder if when the world was young there was only land, no sea. The world has grown since then and the cracks filled with tears. We're still melting the ice. The strings melt me.

Happenstance

This is an incredibly mature song, in all senses. It sounds as though it could have been recorded any time in the last 40 years. Wonderful, and as deeply forlorn as a gale e-blowed through a winter forest. It's already one of my favourite Church songs ever. This whole album just seems to inhabit its own multi-verse and it is very difficult to consider comparisons.

Space Saviour

The Johnny Reggae style guitar intro gives no clue as to waves of pure joy to follow. If Spiritualized were as good as they once promised to be, this would be their greatest song ever. They say Jason Pierce has the dreamiest eyes in pop, Steve has the most piercing in eye popping dreams. An absolute stone cold classic that should be blasting out of every speaker everywhere worldwide. What the ---- are people thinking about? Sexy boots?

Side two later

On Angel Street

A car horn repeats as if going off with a corpse leaning against it. The words arrive and they are frozen and hollow. More wind worn than even Happenstance, the cracks are appearing and bursting under the strain of regret. The backwards guitar signals the arrival of a squall, somewhere out beyond the mistral. One of the saddest and most beautiful songs ever conceived. Truly breathtaking.

Sunken Sun

The sun always seems more incandescent after a storm, much more butter-milked and honeyed. This sun is as bright as a thousand serpentine flares meandering around a star going nova. I feel renewed just listening to it.

Anchorage

One of the most infectious and hopeful tracks on the entire release, complete with a chorus that just weaves and twists through my head all day. This track alone is worth the cost of the entire disk. This track is discursive yet concise and a wonderful example of amazing song writing.

Lunar

A genuinely strange and elusive track, like a forgotten bottle of wine lost in a cellar somewhere, waiting to be consumed. The dramatic change midway is incredible, really majestic and sweeping.

Operetta

Without a doubt the finest closing song on a Church album ever and I'm including Summer from Forget Yourself here. When the trumpet arrived at 3:19 I felt like I was back in the summer of 68, and I seriously welled up like a balloon. All those years, tears and fears came through so clear.

I could kiss each member of the band for bringing this music to life. What an amazing time the last few years been for Church fans.

Best Church album……….period.

Brian