The Church conjure psychedelic hymns on ambitious and intricate new album ‘Lacuna’.
I’ve probably covered The Church more than any other band on this site, and for good reason. Their intoxicating blend of psychedelia, shimmering guitar soundscapes and alternative rock cast a spell on me in high school, and I’ve never looked back. Best known to casual listeners for their iconic hit “Under the Milky Way,” the Australian legends have always offered their devoted fanbase something far more expansive: entire feasts for the ears, where the melodies linger, the guitars intertwine like serpents, and the lyrics invite repeated exploration.
On their 28th album, Lacuna (Oct. 30, Cooking Vinyl), The Church deliver a sprawling 17-song collection that traverses a sonic landscape befitting their considerable atmospheric talents. Coming off the heels of their 50th-anniversary Singles tour, the band sounds remarkably rejuvenated, crafting some of the most immediately accessible yet quietly challenging music of its career. This is the kind of quality control that bassist, vocalist and sole remaining founding member Steve Kilbey has long demanded of himself and his bandmates, and the quality control is apparent in every note the band emits.
Following the critical acclaim of 2023’s The Hypnogogue, Lacuna continues the band’s remarkable late-career creative resurgence. Rather than retreating into nostalgia, The Church (who have expanded to a sextet) build on their established sound, finding fresh possibilities in the interplay between dream pop, post-punk, psychedelic rock and expansive, cinematic arrangements.
The album’s consistency is one of its greatest strengths, maintaining a cohesive sonic identity without allowing the material to blur together. The guitars ring, swirl and cascade; the rhythm section provides a hypnotic pulse; and Kilbey’s distinctive baritone float above it all, delivering cryptic observations and metaphysical musings with an understated authority.
But this is far from a one-man show. Guitarists Ian Haug, Ashley Naylor and Jeffrey Cain contribute layers of texture and melodic counterpoint, while longtime drummer and producer Tim Powles and newest member Nicholas Meredith help shape the album’s propulsive, sometimes unpredictable rhythmic foundation. The result is a collective achievement, with each element serving the songs rather than simply reinforcing a familiar formula.
The opening “Lumbini Grove” establishes the mood with natural sounds and a hypnotic ambient soundscape before easing into the band’s familiar psychedelic framework. Kilbey’s soothing vocals eventually give way to a euphoric chorus, setting the tone for an album that balances meditative passages with moments of genuine exhilaration.
First single “Western” is an immediate delight. It pairs tranquil, chiming guitars with a breezy midtempo groove that recalls The Cure’s “This Twilight Garden.” Haug, Naylor and Cain give the arrangement its ethereal interplay, while Kilbey’s six-string bass counter lines add subtle movement. Southwestern atmospherics lend the song a distinctive regional flavor (the album was recorded in Austin, Texas) without sacrificing its unmistakable Church identity. “Ferrari” takes a sensual approach to its playful love-song double entendres, while “Sky River” combines female backing vocals, Powles and Meredith’s propulsive percussion, and a disorienting backwards guitar solo.
“Winter” is a gorgeous exercise in romantic melancholy, its twinkling guitars and effervescent melodies recalling the bittersweet beauty The Church have perfected over decades. Kilbey considers it an old-school Church song that could have appeared on 1982’s The Blurred Crusade, and its interlocking guitar textures demonstrate how comfortably the band revisits its roots without simply retracing its steps.
“Have You Been Here Before?” may be the album’s biggest earworm. This psychedelic rocker finds Kilbey at his stream-of-consciousness best, veering between surreal humor and existential reflection as disembodied backing vocals surround a refrain that burrows into the brain. The muscular rhythmic foundation and dense guitars keep the song grounded even as its lyrics wander into the surreal.
Elsewhere, “The Lemurian” shifts from dreamy psychedelia to a stomping riff, while “Sky and Hill” crafts a dreamy yet insistent melody. “Paladin” and “Martian Skyline” further explore the album’s fascination with elemental imagery and otherworldly landscapes, with the ensemble’s carefully balanced interplay and strong sense of dynamics giving each track its own character.
“I Want It” offers a burst of Beatlesque tunefulness and life-affirming energy, showcasing some of Kilbey’s clearest, most soaring vocals. By contrast, “The Place of Eternal Spring” returns to more ambient territory, weaving yearning vocals and intermeshing guitar lines that seem to converse as much as accompany the melody. “Rapture” ratchets up the intensity with rapid-fire drumming and cascading guitars, building toward a dramatic release reminiscent of the band’s psych-rock rave-up classic “Tantalized.”
“Forever” is a standout change of pace. Originating with piano chords played by Naylor, the song strips away the usual layers of six-string wizardry for a tranquil, meditative arrangement. Shades of Pink Floyd, Harry Chapin and the dreamlike atmosphere of Air’s The Virgin Suicides surface in its reflective mood and soulful dual-guitar passages. The alchemy between the musicians feels intuitive rather than showy, highlighting the creative chemistry that continues to fuel the band’s evolution.
The album closes with the Herculean “Sacred Echoes,” a sprawling epic that brings Lacuna to a suitably monumental conclusion. Over a tapestry of guitars and cavernous percussion, Kilbey contemplates loss and uncertainty with an impassioned yet measured delivery. Powles and Meredith help drive the song from its more delicate passages toward a discombobulated climax, while the guitarists build a towering wall of feedback-fueled sound around Kilbey’s vocals. Previously previewed in shortened form as “Sacred Echoes Part II,” the full composition stands among the album’s defining achievements.
At 17 tracks, Lacuna demands time and attention, but its length feels less like indulgence than an invitation to inhabit the band’s world. Its greatest accomplishment is the way it sustains a unified continuity while continually finding new angles from which to explore it. Kilbey remains a singular lyricist and vocalist, but the contributions of Haug, Naylor, Cain, Powles and Meredith are integral to the album’s richness. Their aural synergy gives these songs the depth and dimension that distinguish The Church from so many of their contemporaries.
More than four decades into their recording career, The Church continue to demonstrate that longevity need not mean diminishing returns. Instead it has expanded and informed their sound. Lacuna is at once familiar and exploratory, melancholic and euphoric, a record that rewards both casual immersion and close listening. For a band whose music has long felt like an invitation to drift somewhere between the terrestrial and the cosmic, the journey remains as spellbinding as ever.
