The Church ‘Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars’ Review: companion piece expands on Aussie rockers 2023 concept album ‘The Hypnogogue’.

Last year Aussie alternative psych rockers The Church released their 26th studio album The Hypnogogue. It was a hallmark for the band in two respects: it was their first album featuring only one original member (founder, vocalist, and bassist Steve Kilbey), and it was their first proper concept album.

Those two distinctions meant there were high expectations, but Kilbey and co. more than rose to the occasion, with one of their strongest albums to date, making a compelling case for their continued existence.

Ever prolific, the band (rounded out by drummer Tim Powle, guitarists Ian Haug and Ashley Naylor and multi-instrumentalist Jeffrey Cain) recorded enough additional material to make a new album. So they did. Entitled Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars, it’s a companion piece to The Hypnogogue (out 3/29 on Communicating Vessels).

Eros continues The Hypnogogue’s  loose sci-fi concept narrative, and one overreaching theme is the passage of time. Opening track Realm of Minor Angels is a case in point. It’s a classic melancholy Church track, with hypnotic interweaving guitar lines.

It’s sweet with a touch of sadness, with Kilbey’s lyrics approximating a man recalling with both fondness and regret as his life begins to wind down “autumn leaves on a tree, these tiny things mean so much to me…no more ‘see you later’, no more ‘it can wait’.

Time also rears its head on 2054, which reflects the dire aspects of climate change: “things are really warming up…the core is melting/the rain keeps pelting”, while The Immediate Future’s frosty melody recounts a love affair in celestial terms: “I remember when Pluto was a planet/and I was a young man…and you left me orbiting like a dead star.”

The theme continues with looking back on A Strange Past, a quirky knotty number which sees the band at their most proggy, clocking in at over 9 minutes with Avant-garde off-kilter melodies recalling late 70s/early 80s Bowie. It’s the band’s densest most labyrinthine song since Chaos off their 1992 epic Priest=Aura.

It is worth noting how strong the songcraft and playing is throughout Eros Zeta, all the more accomplished given the new lineup, which sound fully gelled, as if they’ve been playing for far longer than the short few years they’ve been together.

Take the ornate and sophisticated Amanita, which is a collision of diverse instrumentation and texturse, or Song From The Machine Age, an old school driving rock groove with fuzz bass and guitar, which makes for sexual cybernetics :”I lay my hands carefully down on the levers of your machine, I slide up in-between, where I can’t be seen…I’m trying to please you” evolving into widescreen space rock.

There are musical left turns as well: the band get bluesy on The Weather, which takes them out of their comfort zone with its delightful ramshackle delivery, or Sublimated in Song, which balances distorted guitars, spacey synths and other cavernous overtones for a lovely submergence in sound.

Elsewhere the group continue to refine their signature delivery, such as the lovely, plaintive Song 18, with buoyant sonics recalling both Modest Mouse and Cocteau Twins with its buoyant shoegaze melody, or the jangle pop of Sleeping For Miles, with twinkling guitars and roaming bass.

The album concludes on the quirky closer Music From The Ghost Motel, with stretched rubber-band ambience that recalls Fripp-Eno at their most ethereal.

Eros Zeta is the ultimate proof that The Church know how to balance quantity and quality.It also makes a strong case that this current lineup augments rather than diminishes the band’s legacy, balancing Kilbey’s experience and leadership while injecting fresh blood into the proceedings.

It proves The Church  still have room to expand into new dimensions of sound, all while never abandoning their sonic identity. Pretty damn impressive for a band over four decades into their career.