Music in Which Words Need Only Sound Poetic

The Church combines 12-string guitar, bass and drums with dreamy images to make superficial but enticing pop.

by Karen Schoemer

Empty-headed pop music usually comes in the form of sleek, high-tech disco or pounding three-chord rock. But the Church, an Australian quartet that just released its seventh album, "Gold Afternoon Fix" (Arista AL 8579, all three formats) makes lightweight pop of a different sort. Instead of disco's synthetic tracks and drum machines, or commercial rock's tired riffs and cliched baby-I- love-you lyrics, the Church combines 12-string guitar, bass and drums with dreamy images to make an elegant surface of sound. It is, like stained-glass windows, intricate, beautiful to behold and wholly without depth.

Each of the Church's compositions sets out to create a specific mood, which the band achieves through the distinct and carefully balanced contributions of each member. Marty Willson-Piper, the lead guitarist, might start things off playing a measure-long guitar melody that repeats throughout the verses and forms the backbone of the song. Steven Kilbey then joins in with a bass part that contrasts harmonically with the guitar. Next, Richard Ploog adds a soft drum part that echoes the tempo of the guitar or bass. The band's other guitarist Peter Koppes, fills in the spaces with a second lead or a strummed chord.

The Church sometimes overdubs guitar parts or looming keyboard backdrops, and the pieces fit together with the complexity of a finished puzzle. Few rock bands construct their sound with such meticulous order, or with such scrupulous sensitivity to what each member is playing.

Mr. Kilbey is also the Church's primary lyricist and singer, and both the sound of his voice and the words he sings put the final flourishes on the Church's veneer. His low register tones are rich, yet remote. He sings about concepts more than concrete things -- time, distance, darkness, power, corruption -- and his purposely vague descriptions suggest his subjects in only the barest outline. Even his depictions of people and places are nebulous: "Is there anybody there?" he asks in "Pharaoh," the first song on the album. "I could swear I'm not alone; show your faces if you dare."

His lyrics, together with the ambiance created by the guitar (whether it's in a major or minor key, at a graceful or agitated tempo) set the mood for each song. In "Pharaoh," the sinister feeling of Mr. Willson-Piper's jarring, slightly discordant melody complements Mr. Kilbey's sense of displacement.

Shimmering 12-string guitar chords lend a lightness and ease to "Metropolis" that recurs in the lyrics: as the singer stands with his lover, looking out on an imaginary city, the only details that he relates are that it has trees that bear oranges, a zoo with elephants and weather that is "ridiculous."

The titles give immediate clues to the feelings of the songs "Disappointment" and "Fading Away"; it's as though the band came up with the guitar line, decided upon a word the sound evoked, then came up with images evoked by but sometimes only tangentially related to the word. [as if!] It would be a mistake to attach too much meaning to the songs -- they give away little about the lives or personalities of the band members, although they can skillfully conjure an emotional response (melancholia, hopefulness, fear) in the listener.

Occasionally the lyrics veer from the abstract to the outright silly, usually when Mr. Kilbey is trying to be too heady or ironic. Lines like "the universe is female" (from "Essence"), "You sit upon your throne and make grown men weep -- with boredom" (from "Pharaoh") and "Turn down the gravity/This is all too heavy" (from "Terra Nova Cain") are bubble-headed at best. The Church get into trouble when they try to be deeper than they are. But even their silliness can sometimes be charming. "Russian Autumn Heart," sung and written by Mr. Willson-Piper, is pretty nonsensical. But his passionate yearning vocals and exuberant melody create a context in which words need only sound poetic.

The Church wasn't always this enticingly superficial; the band has worked hard since forming in Sydney in 1980, honing its sound to bring out the fullest potential in each instrument. On early albums like "The Church" from 1982, their first American release, and 1984's "Remote Luxury" the band exhibited Byrds-ish folk-rock and late '60s psychedelic influences. The results were average to overwrought; without the flawless sheen in the music, Mr. Kilbey's lyrics tended to come across disjointed.

There are notable exceptions, though -- the bristling teenage anthem "The Unguarded Moment" and the breathlessly gentle "No Explanation" showed that the Church was quickly exhausting the jangly-pop genre. By 1985's "Heyday," they were placing more emphasis on pretty sounds for pretty sounds' sake. (Even the cover art indicated the band was experimenting with textures: the four members are pictured standing against a red-hued Oriental rug, wearing elaborately patterned paisley shirts that exquisitely contrast with the backdrop.) That album's highlights -- "Myrrh," "Tristesse," "Happy Hunting Ground" -- have chiming guitars, airy melodies and lush orchestral arrangements polished to such a resplendence that they make listeners want to close their eyes and think about nothing at all.

All this time, the Church was building a dedicated audience through air play on college radio stations and brash, energetic live shows, in which its raw garage roots came through to give the songs a new immediacy. In 1988, the band made its commercial breakthrough with the album "Starfish" and the single "Under the Milky Way." More consistent and focused than either "Heyday" or "Gold Afternoon Fix," "Starfish" is the closest the Church has gotten to the sonic perfection it seeks.

Mr. Willson-Piper's guitar work is unerringly sharp, the melodies are crisp and memorable, and Mr. Kilbey's lyrics are linked by the underlying themes of restlessness and abandon that resonate in the opening track "Destination." But if "Gold Afternoon Fix" is a little hazier than its predecessor, it too proves that the most enchanting music can sometimes be the least demanding.

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