CHURCH

If Closure/Continuation left you a bit cold or underwhelmed in 2022, if you've longed for an album that evokes what you felt in the days of Stupid Dream and Deadwing, you might wish to check out an Italian release from 2023 called Church. The oddly named eating.seats released their debut back in 2008, and it sounded a bit like an homage to early Pink Floyd with their own twist. Very promising debut. It would take 15 years for their follow-up second album to drop, but the results are worth the wait. And if you happen to be a fan of early-2000s Porcupine Tree, you are gonna need to hear this one.

Honestly, if you asked AI to create you an album that sounded like early/mid 2000s Porcupine Tree but with a slight Italian accent on the vocal, I suspect it might sound like Church. In no way is that intended as disrespect to eating.seats. I'm simply trying to give a quick general understanding of their sound, and that's what I hear. The fact is that I love this album. The songs are heavy and rocking, the moods melancholy but hopeful, dreamy. I feel as if I have found some lost PT album that evokes some of the pleasure I remember when I heard stuff like Deadwing and Fear of a Blank Planet and Stupid Dream for the first time all those years ago. Not only does the guitar style mirror the hyper-smooth/slight fuzz/heavy riffing of PT, but the vocalist sounds a bit similar to Wilson as well. They even layer on the gorgeous harmony technique Wilson perfected on those albums. The last track deviates the most from this sound, moving to a fairly traditional post-rock shimmering/swelling buildup and release. It's an effective closer that brings things down a notch from what is generally a pretty heavy album.

This is a thoroughly satisfying album for fans of spacey, heavy, modern prog in the Wilson-esque universe of sound. Kudos for the very XTC/Dukes of Stratosphear sounding song titles which amused me.