The Church - The Hypnogogue (Deluxe) (2023) Hi-Res

This could be better than you think.” Lineup changes are nothing new to the Church. The Australian mainstays are currently on their fourth drummer, Tim Powles, and guitarists Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes have both quit the band at least twice apiece. But with both Willson-Piper and Koppes out of the picture, frontman Steve Kilbey has recruited a pool of fresh blood for the group’s personnel. Guitarist Ian Hague, formerly of Powderfinger, joined the Church about ten years ago and helped to create the two stellar albums Further/Deeper and Man Woman Life Death Infinity.

Jeffrey Cain, formerly of the band Remy Zero, has logged two Kilbey collaborations under the name Isidore and has been a touring member of the Church in the recent past. The most recent addition is Ashley Naylor of the band Even. This quintet began working on new material before the pandemic, and we all know what that did for everyone’s plans. So their album The Hypnogogue has been a long time coming.

After much recording, re-recording, setting aside time for side-projects, side-gigging, and general international travel (for a time, Cain couldn’t come to Australia due to COVID-related travel restrictions), the revamped Church are finally ready to unleash The Hypnogogue, probably one of the strangest releases to bear their name since the 1990s. It also sounds like a Church album through and through. If the Soft Machine were able to release an album with almost no original members just eight years after their debut, surely Kilbey can take his place as the Chris Squire of Space Rock and lead the charge known as the Church into the 2020s.