UAWIL #269: The Church - Heyday
Before Under The Milky Way made them international stars, The Church struggled to find their identity and sound via the preceding album Heyday - a collective effort of ambience and interweaving guitars that the band still place today
The Church are a bit of an enigma in the rock world. Though best known for their breakout 1988 song Under The Milky Way off of Starfish. Prior to that they'd had an unexpected Australian anthem in An Unguarded Moment. But they didn't want to be a pop band - they saw themselves as members of the new psychedelic movement. So the cover of Heyday (released in Australia late 1985 but in the US January 28, 1986) you can see the lads sporting some paisley shirts against a Persian Rug. But at that point, they'd already abandoned their psychedelic leanings for their own AOR stylings.
The album Heyday, produced by Peter Walsh (Simple Minds) provides some entrancing guitar work with lyrics from Steve Kilbey that go from seeing behind the curtain of fame (Disenchanted) to unending sadness (Tristesse) to vain plastic surgery junkies (Youth Worshipper). Peter Koppes and Marty Wilson-Piper offer intricate and jangling guitars which make for 120 Minutes gold on MTV and can even put you into a bit of a trance. Myrrh and Tantalized proved to be all time favorites of Church fans and are still part of the band's setlist to this day.
However, though songs like Columbus and Already Yesterday may have been enjoyed by fans of the band, they failed to crack the charts the way the record company had hoped. Still, the band were able to tour the US with Echo & The Bunnymen which helped them break down some doors and win some fans. Though they were dropped by their record companies after Heyday, this led to them being picked up by Arista, which led to Starfish and success in the US and around the world.
It may not be multi-platinum but Heyday would help define the sound of The Church, allowed them to write songs together and create a foundation that built towards greater success.
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