Album of the Week - Vol. 23

Priest=Aura THE CHURCH (1992)
Week: Sat 22nd to Fri 28th October 2022 
Format: vinyl, CD and Spotify
Producer: The Church and Gavin McKillop
Track listing:
1. Aura *
2. Ripple *
3. Paradox
4. Lustre
5. Swan Lake *
6. Feel
7. Mistress
8. Kings *
9. Dome
10. Witch Hunt
11. The Disillusionist *
12. Old Flame
13. Chaos
14. Film *
BONUS:
15. Nightmare (not on vinyl)
16. Fog (not on vinyl)
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 1hr 12min

The Church's eight studio album is seen by many as the band's artistic highpoint, including frontman Steve Kilbey. I heard him on a radio interview years ago (possibly with Richard Fidler on the ABC?) refer to this record as their best album; and he calls it the group's 'undisputed masterpiece' in his autobiography, Something Quite Peculiar. The band underwent a 30th anniversary tour in 2011 dubbed "Future, Past, Perfect" which saw them play 2009's Untitled #23, 1988's Starfish and this album in their entireties. The latter being the 'perfect' component of the three album tour. 

Celebrating its 30th anniversary itself this year, Priest=Aura is quite a listen. While it's not a concept album per se, it has a cohesion that is lacking from their other long players, except for maybe Starfish. I've dabbled with The Church from time to time over the last few years, and I only own four of their albums, this being one of them. In fact, I have the 2011 remaster on CD and the coloured vinyl reissue. I've seen them live three times and each time they've had a different line-up. 

The first time was part of A Day on the Green show in December 2012 that also featured Models, Devo and Simple Minds. It was pretty damn great, and we have a CD of the Devo set! Very cool. Far out, that was nearly ten years ago! The band consisted of bassist/singer Kilbey, guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper and drummer Tim Powles. They only performed a short eight-song set, including crowd pleasers Metropolis, Almost With You and Under the Milky Way, but interestingly, nothing from this album. 

Just under five years later, Rhona and I ventured douth to see them play at the Dunsborough Tavern in November 2017, touring their new album Man Woman Life Death Infinity. Again, nothing from this album was on the setlist. Willson-Piper abruptly left the band a couple of years earlier, and had been replaced by Ian Haug, who used to be in Powderfinger. Move forward another five years, and in October this year, our boy Lachlan and I caught them at the Astor Theatre in Mt Lawley. At this juncture, Koppes had left The Church for the second time, with Ash Naylor (Even, The Stems) taking his place. A third guitarist (and sometime keyboardist) Jeffrey Cain from Alabama, USA had also joined the line-up. In addition to that, a second drummer in the form of Nick Meredith was also thrown into the mix; and the band did sound immense on that night. 

This time around, they did play something from Priest=Aura: Kings. That was the only offering though, but it was pretty awesome, and really benefited from the extra drummer. Their rendition of You Took, from 1982's The Blurred Crusade was a big highlight for Lachlan and me, he not even having heard it before. But I digress!

Back to the album in question. I've been listening to it a bit this week after reading those very words Kilbey wrote in his book; which I bought a copy of at the Astor (signed by him too, no less). It's a great album, for sure, but I haven't really grasped what makes Kilbey so fond of it. One thing that makes Priest=Aura stand out from The Church's back catalog is the appearance of the wonderful Jay Dee Daugherty on the drums. His attack and style are so distinctive, that you can always pick a cut from this record. He came into the band's orbit after The Church's drummer of nearly ten years, Richard Ploog, became increasingly difficult to work with. His final album with the group, 1990's Gold Afternoon Fix, saw him play on only four tracks, while the rest of the songs utilised programming. 

Daugherty had previously been in the Patti Smith Group, and his presence on this record seems to lift the band out of their post-GAF doldrums. Very much a collaborative effort, each of the album's tracks are credited to Kilbey/Koppes/Willson-Piper/Daugherty, except for Mistress. All of the songs are simply titled as well, often using just one word. The opening track, Aura, sets the scene well. We are introduced to a fairly dreamy landscape, courtesy of some ethereal keyboards before Daugherty's snare cracks the band into life. Indeed, the interplay between guitarists Koppes and Willson-Piper as arguably never been better. Another reason for the album's distinctive sound is Kilbey's notion of using a 1960s Fender VI six-string bass guitar on every track.

That first track unsurprisingly includes the album's title in its lyrics, stemming from Kilbey misreading a Spanish translation of priest as 'aura' (and not 'cura') in a Spanish fan's English notes. The end section of song gives way to some great lyrical comparitives:

And life = time

And time = space

And space = sublime

And human = race

Oh and woman = man

And pot = pan

The fauna ought to equal the flora

But priest = aura

The next track, Ripple, is another highlight for me, with a great melodic refrain that will get stuck in your head, if you're not careful. Paradox is a meditation on Kilbey's slowly blooming heroin addiction, as he ways up the good and the bad. He would be a slave to the drug for over a decade, before starting the 21st century clean. 

Other big highlights for me include the aforementioned Kings and the gentle Swan Lake, the latter detailing Kilbey's feelings about his soon-to-be-born twin girls. Another favourite for me is the eerie tale of The Disillusionist, which features an amazing octave hopping bassline and a baffling chorus:

They say that he's famous from the waist down

But the top half of his body is a corpse

His gold won't buy him sleep

His poverty runs so deep

In winter he cracks, in summer he warps

My biggest pet peeve with recorded music almost ruins this track, as it fades out while Kilbey is still singing!! I don't know if this was done to save on running time, or if the band came to a crashing heap towards the song's end, but it is a puzzling choice! Even more frustrating to me, is that the performance of The Disillusionist on the excellent A Psychedelic Symphony concert at the Sydney Opera House in 2011 keeps going past that fade-out point! In fact, the band (and orchestra) start to peter out until it's just Kilbey reciting the lyrics a cappela. So, that's a weird ending as well. Could they not decide on a way to finish the song?! Anyway, I still love the song, despite this. 

The best and worst of this album happen in the last two tracks. The sprawling Chaos nudges the ten minute mark in length, and has several false stops. Although the bass riff the song is built around is quite cool, it does get a little monotonous after a while. The battle between the guitarists for who can make the most noise gets very grating too. After the sonic assault of this track dies off, your ears get treated to the wonderful instrumental Film. A lovely ending to the record, this feels like music that would run as the credits of a noir thriller roll. No doubt, a big reason why the track is titled as such.

The two bonus tracks on the CD are okay, but they don't seem to fit nicely with the rest of the album, particularly Nightmare. It sounds like a good fit, but the lyrics are too playful or something. Just doesn't belong, although it's an interesting listen. 

Like I said at the start of this post, I don't think this is my favourite album by The Church, but it's pretty damn great. It has been very interesting to listen to it in different formats. Having headphones on and streaming it while walking is very enjoyable. I do love listening to an album on vinyl when you have to change sides so often (it's a two platter offering). The songs get a chance to breathe and sink in before you listen to the next section. I like that. It's also nice to do the opposite and have the CD assault you continuously. He he he... it's all good!

Be kind. That's it.

I'm seeing more signs like this in shops and drive throughs around Perth, and it makes me very sad. Why do people need a reminder to be nice and treat others with respect? What really chills me is imagining what some customer service employees have been subjected to. What events have transpired to motivate management to make and display a sign to tell (potential) customers to mind their manners? 

Are we becoming angrier or less patient as a society? Is technology to blame? Are we becoming accustomed to some processes of daily life taking less time and expecting other areas to follow suit? The world is in a fair bit of turmoil at the moment, and I have no doubt that COVID-19 with its restrictions, border closures and deaths are making many feel stressed and anxious about the future. However, feeling stressed is not a license to take out your frustrations on the next person you interact with. 

The strife and chaos in headlines at home and around the world are enough to fill the average person with dread and anger. The sexual abuse of women in Parliament House, Aboriginal deaths in custody, people struggling to find housing, the senseless killing of George Floyd, the bungled COVID-19 vaccination roll-out in Australia, the devastation of Kalbarri by Cyclone Seroja, the rising instances of domestic violence, to name but a few. While watching the news, I think I usually let out at least one audible 'far out' during a viewing. There's an anger, and also a sense of fear, that is permeating through more and more people. 

I was shocked, but not entirely surprised, with the incredibly high amount of shootings in the US recently. Over 20 separate incidents across the country in the last month or so. That's a very scary statistic. Americans must be scared to leave their house! I know I would be! It would be so hard to send your children to school.

But, on a local unarmed front, why are more people letting fly at those trying to serve them? Why was there a need for the 'No One Deserves a Serve' ads around Christmas time? Having worked in retail in the past, I know that customers can be fickle or difficult, but I don't think I ever got abused. Christmas can be a stressful time of year for many people, and getting everything sorted for the holiday period seems to bring out the worst in some. We all get frustrated when things don't go the way we hope or plan, but what makes someone throw manners and courtesy to the side and just let spray. No consideration for the other person's feelings (or in extreme cases, well-being). No care if the person they're addressing is personally responsible for the issue or not. No concern of who sees them blow their stack. 

What goes through someone's brain to think it's okay to unload all their frustrations onto a complete stranger? Is it the lack of ramification? Knowing that there will be minimal consequences, while hiding behind 'the customer is always right'? Maybe my past as a retail worker makes me more empathetic towards people in customer service. I hate seeing people being rude to those that are employed to serve them. Those who feel some are beneath them. It's horrible to see that contempt. There's an old saying that you can judge a person's character by how they treat others who can't do anything for them. Or something like that.

Another disturbing trend of late is bagging out movies or TV shows that aren't exactly what fans expect. Or abusing actors online because they don't like what their character is doing in their favourite program. Sometimes the fact that the character even exists is an affront to the person with the issue. Or chewing out directors or writer or producers for 'ruining their childhood' with the latest offering of a franchise. I totally understand being disappointed by a film or an episode of something, and I have myself expressed those feelings online. However, I've never targeted a particular individual and subjected them to various outpourings of venom and vitriol. 

One fairly recent example of this was what was happening to Wyatt Russell, who starred in Disney+'s recent The Falcon and the Winter Soldier streaming TV series. He portrayed the role of John Walker, the new Captain America. Rather than separate the person from the character, Russell himself received death threats and his social media accounts were being bullied. Russell is not actually on those platforms, and it was the fake accounts that were inadvertently being targeted. 

Apparently, Russell has taken these barbs in his stride, enjoying the fact that people have hated Walker (or 'fake Captain America') as much as they have. That was the point. You weren't supposed to like him. Russell's so good at his craft that he made people angry at him. But it's a TV show! It's not real! What makes someone go, 'Dang, I hate this character! I'm going to abuse the actor bringing it to life'. I was horrified when I learnt what some 'fans' of Star Wars did to Kelly Marie Tran, who played Rose in Episode VIII - The Last Jedi. Such was the abuse she was subjected to, she deleted her Instagram posts and left social media entirely. Not only did they criticise the character, some felt compelled to attack the actor's performance, and others made comments of a personal nature. Who wants to be exposed to horrible racial trolling on a daily basis? No one.

In the age we live in, it's so much easier to interact with celebrities, and in some cases, that's not a good thing. For all the lovely messages of support and encouragement famous people receive on social media, there's almost certainly a percentage of nasty and toxic ones. 

I don't have any solutions or answers to the questions I've posed, but I felt like expressing my feelings. We're all in this thing together, and no one is getting out of here alive. So, while we're sharing the planet with one another, let's remember our manners. Let's think of other people. I had the hypothetical idea a while ago that The Meaning Of Life was to learn to live together in harmony. It costs nothing to be polite or civil. No one really knows what is going on in someone else's life, particularly a stranger's. 

Be kind. That's it.

I'll leave the final words of this post to the frontman of The Church, Mr Steve Kilbey. In a recent interview with X-Press Magazine he expressed regret at his actions as a younger musician, feeling that being aloof and difficult was the wrong way to handle success. "It was a mistake. I should have been a nicer person all along. Being a nice person is the best thing in life and I didn’t understand that." 

Nuff said.