The Church Is Closed

[Johnny Ostentatious]

I had my iPod on shuffle the other day and two songs by The Church played in a row: the rockin' "Fraulein" from the early '80s and the oh-so-mellow "Radiance" from 2002's After Everything Now This. It still amazes me how they changed from an excellent pop-rock piece to a sleepy psychedelic outift.

I much prefer their older stuff, so a few years ago I picked up 2003's Forget Yourself, since I read it was less psychedelic and more rock. It was good (I kept seven of the fourteen tracks on my iPod) but not great. There was still that psychedelic feel with the average song clocking in at five minutes. Overall, the album sounded as if The Church were trying recapture their sound from the early '80s, but they've moved too far away from that commercial heyday to now write nice, tight, three-minute pop songs.

Oh well, at least we still have Paul McCartney still writing great pop music. . . .