★★★★★
It's next to impossible to write about the Church without mentioning "Under the Milky Way". It's the convenient touchstone by which to reference the band - the song most people are likely to know. I'm as guilty as any, having written an article on the song. At this point, if the band and the fans aren't sick of the song, they're probably sick of reading about it...
- www.popmatters.com
2014-10-27
★★★★★
Steve Kilbey and his Churchmen continue their prolonged cosmic journey with almost evangelical zeal. Of Skins and Heart emerged in 1981 and since that time there have been records bearing The Church moniker almost on an annual basis. That makes for a lot of records and songs. Kilbey has over 700 songs registered with APRA, and undoubtedly even he would be pressed to name each one...
- www.beat.com.au
2014-10-21
★★★★★
Sound: The second album The Blurred Crusade, issued in March 1982, was mixed and produced by Clearmountain.Stylistically more complex than their debut, it is "a smoother, fuller release". "With its mystical lyrics the second album ... brought the group's own style more into focus". The album peaked at No. 10 and its first single, "Almost With You" resulted in a second Top 30 hit, peaking at No. 21. // 9 Lyrics and Singing: The lyrics jump out and grasp you as they try and tell their story...
- www.ultimate-guitar.com
2011-04-12
★★★★★
Sound: Released in 1980, The Church's debut album spawned them one of their first hits - The Unguarded Moment. The church's two guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Wilson-piper blend seemlesly. Coupled with Steve Kilbey's vocals it makes for a rich, atmospheric first album. // 9 Lyrics and Singing: The lyrics make you stop and think. They are not overly simplistic lyrics and are written well. They suit the rich guitar sounds of the record and lend atmosphere to the record...
- www.ultimate-guitar.com
2010-12-20
★★★★★
A sneaky album. Grizzled veterans of the music biz from Down Under, these guitar scenesters have been peddling dreamy passion pop since you were in diapers. Jangly Australian psychedelic rock with suave crooning makes the ladies swoon, and tricky guitar plucking makes the gents uh, swoon. It's the reason The Church are still around...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
Next year, the Church will be thirty years old. The Sydney, Australia, quartet is among the longest-lived, most prolific bands of the last three decades, but in North America, they're pretty much known as a one-hit wonder for 1988's haunted, atmospheric single "Under the Milky Way". It's really not fair because, apart from the late 1990s, they've been consistently good, and LPs like Séance, Priest = Aura, and Heyday deserve to be heard in their entirety...
- pitchfork.com
2010-09-11
★★★★★
Fittingly enough, the lush musicof the Australian band, The Church would sound great booming around inthe airy upper reaches of a large cathedral. Unfortunately, the logicbehind the band's weightier lyrics doesn't bear close inspection. Forinstance, the opening cut of Priest=Aura, the Church's eighth record,evokes a postnuclear landscape in which humankind discovers that"love equals hate and death equals fate/An enemy always equals anadorer/The priest equals aura...
- ew.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
The prolific output of The Church is in direct proportion to its devoted fans' appetite for the music. How else would this veteran Australian quartet be able to work so independently and successfully for over two decades, with only a single foray into the mainstream via 1988's "Under The Milky Way Tonight"? The quality of the work has much to do with the support it receives as The Church records regularly in a variety of formats and concepts...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2010-08-20
★★★★★
Kept alive by loyal Internet-rallied fans, guitarist Marty Willson-Piper's work ethic and perhaps even a dab of Donnie Darko magic—its soundtrack featured the band's lone US hit, 1988's shimmering "Under The Milky Way"—The Church are, against the odds, still a dreamily appealing proposition. Led, as ever, by the lusciously intimate vocals of Steve Kilbey, they're still essentially serving up an Antipodean franchise of Echo & The Bunnymen's sweeping neo-psychedelia...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2010-06-19
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