The Best of The Church [1999]
by The Church
REVIEWS and COMMENTS
The latter half of 1999 saw the release of two Church comps. What's going on? More to the point, what do you get?
The Australian release on the surface appears to be a rush job. Listening to it though is a joy! Forget the dodgy artwork (Church as ethereal, mysterious, etc.) and lack of sleeve notes (an interesting feature of both Hindsight and Almost Yesterday), only one photo (at least it's recent!), the 18 tracks are well selected. With nothing from Seance, Remote Luxury or Heyday they've had to dig deeper into the back catalogue, concentrating mainly on Starfish and Gold Afternoon Fix (5 tracks!) giving lesser exposed tracks deserved attention. As a result Marty's Spark and Russian Autumn Heart (both popular among fans) appear, together with Monday Morning, Antenna and Terra Nova Cain, which, when heard out of their usual context, make you realise what great songs they are, particularly the GAF choices. There's some good material on that album!
Again, Feel is the single re-mix, but this time it's the video edit for Two Places at Once and Ripple has a further quarter of a minute removed from its edited re-mix state even! At least I think it's the edited version.... You don't get that much chance to find out! The collection also covers MATS, too, so the classic Comedown and Welcome are featured.
The track selection does away with chronological order, which keeps things interesting. Unguarded Moment and Milky Way begin the collection, but from there it's all twists and turns throughout the career, older tracks beside more recent ones. Whether by design or accident, the link from Comedown to Too Fast For You (with the first line 'Come down, another day....') is inspired! I had a chuckle!
Completists get both, but here we have two more additions with which to turn on a friend...Spread the word....