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| Name: | Lucas |
| Review or Comments: | I love the site!!! Keep up the good work. Thanx for all the pics and info! <a rel="dofollow" href="http://medll.iquebec.com/fioricet/" title="fioricet">fioricet</a> ... <a rel="dofollow" href="http://goss.atwebpages.com/prozac/prozac-nation.html" title="prozac nation">prozac nation</a> ... webmaster. |
| Name: | Hans Ankarlid |
| Review or Comments: | From my point of view, it's here the journey begins. This is the bands second highlight (after Starfish). The journey into exploring unknown landscapes, prog and psychedelic maps. The opener on this album has always blown me away. The album should be listened to several times. It grows.. Greetz from Sweden. |
| Name: | sbeastian |
| Review or Comments: | este disco es exelente me compre la version doble los temas exelentes los lados b tbn exelentes el albun completo es bueno las canciones fog chaos son de verdad increibles todo muy bueno suiza¡¡¡
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| Name: | Richie |
| Review or Comments: | THE CHURCH'S MASTERPIECE.
Simply put, a magnificent recording that elevates The Church into the stratosphere. Layers of shimmering Willson-Piper and Koppes guitars and vocal/bass playing mastery by Steve make this easily The Church's masterpiece album, bar none. While Starfish may arguably be the band's POP masterpiece, Preist=Aura is a classic ROCK album from start to finish. Not in the sense of soaring guitars and stadium friendly lyrics ala U2 (my other favorite band of all time along with The Church), but this is why I am a rock music fan to begin with. I am challenged by the music rather than sedated by it. Often dense and brooding, the opener "Aura" finds Steve in a lyrical stream of consciousness that is both absorbing and engaging. "Ripple" is pure sonic brilliance and one of their best singles ever. Other faves include "Dome," a ballad unequalled in their recording catalogue, except for maybe "Lost" from Starfish, imho. Here Steve is the storyteller and the listener is rewarded beyond all expectations with a parable that engages and allures. "Feel," has pop song written all over it with clear vox and a hook that is to die for though I keep thinking that there should be a third verse in there as the song winds down... which is part of The Church's appeal...they defy conventions and confound the listener making for a truly pleasureable sonic experience that challenges rather than simply satiates. "When I nearly had the connection sussed, it slips right off my tongue" is a Steve Kilbey lyric that resonates with me long after the final notes have faded away. My standout faves are the beautiful "Kings" which harkens back to the guitar layered brilliance of "A Month of Sundays," with Peter and Marty's always perfect licks. "Mistress" finds Steve just chewing the mindscape with his lyrics. "Chaos" is the band on all cylinders turning in 9+ minutes of musical mindfucking. Brilliant. My standout track is "The Disillusionist," which could have been recorded in another century with the barroom swagger of it's chorus, seemingly taken, or borrowed for that matter, from another time altogether to produce a staggering piece of work. Both haunting and chilling with an unmistakable resonance. Not the most user-friendly album by The Church by any means, but listeners looking for an adventure rather than just hearing the pop hits will be astonished by the mastery of studio, talent, and sheer creativity that this album rewards after repeated listenings. Truly my favorite of all time from The Church. |
| Name: | Robert E. Schweitzer |
| Review Source (if not you): | Brad Bennett, Music Monitor, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA |
| Review or Comments: | "Aura" musically balances minor and major chords in a disturbing stage play of a disillusioned soldier having been captured and released from an unnamed enemy of another shore.
Thus the stage is set for the rest of 65 minutes worth of the Church's laid back, painful quests into a troubled world of feelings and emotions. While the words are often blended deeply into the musical backdrop, enough comes through to foster the image of someone caught in a dark whirlpool, grasping for the saving rope that may be there. "Everything is going wrong/All my songs are coming true/And another thing/That halo you wear on your head/I haven't seen one of them in years. Where have you been? You've been dead" from "Mistress" is devastating. I was converted to the Church with their 1988 release "Starfish", which was supposed to be their break-through to mainstream. At least there was a hit spawned from it. I found their minor keyed wall of sound with the rich, esoteric baritone vocals very appealing. 1990's "Gold Afternoon Fix" toyed with a few more hooks, but didn't get the airply that "Starfish" received. So, the Church hasn't made the crossover, maybe that's good in that there is not as much pressure to produce product instead of craft. And this release, in my opinion, is close to a melancholy masterpiece. While it may not hit #1, it has far more artistic merit than 99% of what does. The Church is exactly opposite of a lot of the empty popular music so prevalent these days, offering a thoughtful alternative, That, or I'm getting old, disillusioned and depressed. |
| Name: | Tom |
| Review or Comments: | Not to everyone's taste, this album rewards patient listening over cold, rainy nights. The Church have always been on the cusp of greatness without quite crossing the threshold (they have set the bar impossibly high for themselves). However in Priest = Aura they have transcended a tendency for pomp to reveal the closest perfect state. From the opening track to 'the disillusionist' and the carthartic 'film', Kilbey and co somehow pulled a mass of sly guitar, crooning lyrics and studio effects into a sonic heaven (or hell). No one else comes close to its vision. |
| Name: | Christian Schreier from Guatemala |
| Review or Comments: | P=A was my starting point for The Church and to this date my favourite album. It was 1995 and I had not only personal problems but I also had an identity music crisis. I was depressed and miserable, and in a quest to find THE Music for the soundtrack of my life. One day I was watching Mtv and saw the Under the Milky Way video, and it was love at first sight, it was kid of the music I had in mind but that never had listened (I always had something for down tempo). The next day I went to a record store and asked for anything from a band called The Church. I didn’t know the name of the album and I didn’t remember the name of the song. The guy in the store showed me the stuff they had, and I bought Priest= Aura.
From that moment my musical perspective changed forever. It hit me like an earthquake; it caught me totally unguarded, totally vulnerable. The only thing I could compare what I was listening to, was to The Cure, but it was so much better. Just imagine listening to this stuff after having being listening to stuff like Chris Isaak, Dire Straits and D.A.D. It was dark, melancholic, kind of depressive but so, so cool. The music was so rich and complex, the guitars were unbelievable, the vocals out of this world. Something that stuck me hard too was the lyrics, mysterious, eclectic, cynic and in most cases undecipherable. It took me several weeks to digest the whole album. Well, now that I own enough Church stuff to compare this album, I can tell you this is an amazing one. It still sets me in a kind of dream-nightmare state. The guitar work here is great; it has a lot of reverb, delay and the use of feedback is used masterfully. In most of the album there are a lot of layers of guitar that some times blend themselves in a way I’ve rarely heard elsewhere. Some synthesizers you may hear are actually guitars. The drumming in my guitar kind of thinking is very solid and professional. Steve’s bass playing is great, especially in Chaos, where it stands out of the mix. If you ask me which song is the best, I can’t answer that, because I see this album as a whole, and because of that, in other things, it is the best-made Church album. |