After Everything Now This | The Church

After Everything Now This | The Church | beautiful

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After Everything N...

	After Everything Now This The Church Thirsty Ear, 2002 average customer review:based on 54 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Over 2 years in the making and recorded on 3 continents. Thirsty Ear Records.

Recaptures The Magic

If you were a Starfish/Blurred Crusade/Heyday fan, this album captures the sound and atmosphere of those great albums. While there is no stand out track like "Under the Milky Way" every track is a keeper. There is absolutely no filler on this CD. After you hear it, you'll want to play it over and over like all those old church albums.

beautiful

I love this cd, it is simply a beautiful album. Track 2 "after everything" will be played at my funeral. A haunting, serious and great work of art.

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Just listen...

It may seem silly to say, but from start to finish, this record is why music exists: to invoke emotion. Unlike others who may not agree, I found each song to possess its own identity, from the opening "Numbers" all the way to "Invisible". This album is thouroughly enchanting. My personal favorite, difficult as it is to pinpoint, is "Radiance". But then there's the equally ethereal "Night Friends". It's so hard to choose a favorite here, partly because of The Church's expert ability to create lush soundscapes and wrap them around the straight-from-the heart wordplay sung by Steve Kilbey, and partly because of the arrangement of the pieces is so well though-out, which comes through very nicely. I will even dare say more than once was the occasion where I was moved to misty eyes while playing this record. Somewhere in there was a tender spot that I coudn't stop the music from wafting into. And that, my friends, is perfectly alright with me. Say what you will, but for a piece of music to be able to have such an effect is why I am so very passionate about it.

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Masterpiece

The Church has recorded three masterpieces so far:

1. Forget Yourself
2. Gold Afternoon Fix
3. After Everything Now This

Near-masterpieces:

1. Hologram Of Baal
2. Uninvited, Like The Clouds
3. Sometime Anywhere

Indeed, a must have for any Church fan.

Now that several years have passed since "After Everything Now This" was first released, I truly appreciate this fine album even more. While "Forget Yourself" is a great album as well, it is by no means the "return to form" it was heralded as just prior to its release. "Forget Yourself" shows the band moving into a new direction, while "After Everything Else" actually seems to hearken back to some of the sounds that made The Church such a great act.

This album is not without its dull moments, though. I've read other reviews that declare that there are no filler songs to be found on this album, and I totally disagree. But what is a "filler" tune to one fan could be a "classic" to another. Just like religion and politics provoke heated arguments, try asking a bunch of Church fans what the band's greatest album is!

The opening track, "Numbers," is definitely a keeper to me. This particular track has a sound somewhere between what you'd expect on "Starfish" and "Gold Afternoon Fix." "Chromium," another of this album's standout cuts, has a sound that, at times, sounds like it would belong on "Starfish" and at other times would fit right in on "Heyday." This is certainly a good place to be!

In no particular order of goodness, I'm also partial to "Song for the Asking," "Reprieve," and "Invisible." Want to go all the way back to "The Blurred Crusade"? Put "Invisible" on and see if it doesn't bring back memories.

There is really nothing else on the album that stands out to me, but 5 solid cuts out of 10 isn't a bad feat. Besides, I'm as fickle as any other Church fan, and in a year or two I'll probably swear by the songs that sound dull to me now.

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