The Church - The Hypnogogue (2023)

Posted By: delpotro
Date: Dec. 24, 2024

The Church - The Hypnogogue (2023)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) - 402 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 157 Mb | 01:04:39
Alternative Rock, Neo-psychedelia | Label: Communicating Vessels

"Let it first be said that the title track of The Hypnogogue, the first new album from The Church in six years, is one of the most breath-taking singles they’ve released in years, a darkly psychedelic six minutes that slowly spirals into a menacing descent. That alone is reason to keep this one on your radar; the Australian neo-psych band have been going for over 40 years, with around a half dozen classic albums and zero bad ones, yet their ability to keep evolving and uncovering new aspects to their sound and approach only serves as a reminder of how vital they remain after four decades."

After an epic return to homeland stages, Australian psych-rock legends The Church release their new studio album The Hypnogogue. Following on from 2017’s widely acclaimed Man Woman Life Death Infinity, the Sydney band’s 27th album was recorded just before the world was shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging from the darkness is the band’s first new studio album in six years and the first to feature the newest line-up led by founder, bassist and vocalist Steve Kilbey. “The Hypnogogue” is the most prog rock thing we have ever done, we’ve never created a concept album before,” says Kilbey. “It is the most teamwork record we have ever had. Everyone in the band is so justifiably proud of this record and everyone helped to make sure it was as good as it could be. Personally, I think it’s in our top three records.”

AllMusic eview by Matt Collar
It's perhaps hard to believe that four decades into their career, long-running cosmic troubadours the Church have never recorded a full-on concept album. It's a psychedelic tradition that lead singer/bassist Steve Kilbey has explored elsewhere, as on 2021's Jupiter 13, one of several sci-fi-inspired collaborations with electronic musician Martin Kennedy. That said, pretty much every album by the Church has had the sustained atmospherics and Baroque goth drama of a Dayglo gatefold LP. It's an evocative vibe that Kilbey and the band push ever skyward on their monolithic and literate 26th album, 2023's The Hypnogogue. Opening with a rainbow-hued gurgle of what sounds like a spacecraft touching down on "Ascendence," the album doesn't so much wash over you as hover like a cosmogonic stone temple from which each song emanates. Technically speaking, the story at the heart of The Hypnogogue is an enigmatic one, set in a dystopian future world in 2054 in which Kilbey plays a man at the edge of time, or perhaps his avatar dreaming of that man's past? It's all kind of woozy and opaque, yet endlessly intriguing.

Central to the album is the title track, a paean to the opiate nature of AOR itself when donning a pair of oversized headphones to listen to both sides of a spinning black disc was a metaphor for, and perhaps a gateway to, even darker avenues of oblivion. Kilbey sings, "As you went under into unknown/Remember the music pulled out of your head/Piano trickling into the cans/Insulating guitars, reptilian bass/Kick in your face, the snare in your heart." Snare you they do, crafting slow-burning anthems where Kilbey's hushed, late-afternoon David Bowie croon is framed by crescent-moon piano, rocket-engine percussion, and sun-flared electric guitars. Later, they rip into the echoey "Antarctica," a song that recaptures all the womb-like goth intensity and Byrdsian sparkle of their classic work on albums like Of Skins and Heart, The Blurred Crusade, and Starfish. Few bands of their day, and especially those of the post-punk '80s, are as consistent as the Church at writing songs that sound like more sophisticated and mature versions of their classic material. It's a sentiment Kilbey seems to ponder on "Succulent," singing, "I am the voice in another room/Entombed in the dead part of your heart/Voice from a gloomy future/Voice from a gloomy past." It's a tantalizing moment that feels like Kilbey and the Church are folding time and their own career into themselves, something they do throughout The Hypnogogue.
Tracklist:
1. Ascendence (5:38)
2. C'est La Vie (4:55)
3. I Think I Knew (3:57)
4. Flickering Lights (4:50)
5. The Hypnogogue (6:13)
6. Albert Ross (3:54)
7. Thorn (4:12)
8. Aerodrome (4:32)
9. These Coming Days (4:37)
10. No Other You (4:10)
11. Succulent (6:48)
12. Antarctica (5:34)
13. Second Bridge (5:20)

Exact Audio Copy V1.5 from 20. February 2020

EAC extraction logfile from 15. March 2023, 9:54

The Church / The Hypnogogue

Used drive : SlimtypeDVD A DS8A5SH Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\FLAC\FLAC.EXE
Additional command line options : -6 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" -T "BAND=%albuminterpret%" -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%–tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" %hascover%–picture="%coverfile%"%hascover% %source% -o %dest%


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1 | 0:00.00 | 5:37.59 | 0 | 25333
2 | 5:37.59 | 4:55.05 | 25334 | 47463
3 | 10:32.64 | 3:56.62 | 47464 | 65225
4 | 14:29.51 | 4:49.64 | 65226 | 86964
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7 | 29:26.47 | 4:12.03 | 132497 | 151399
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9 | 38:10.42 | 4:37.11 | 171792 | 192577
10 | 42:47.53 | 4:10.07 | 192578 | 211334
11 | 46:57.60 | 6:47.46 | 211335 | 241905
12 | 53:45.31 | 5:34.33 | 241906 | 266988
13 | 59:19.64 | 5:20.08 | 266989 | 290996


Track 1

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Track 8

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Track 9

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Track 10

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Track 11

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Track 12

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Track 13

Filename C:\Users\kqwie\Desktop\CD\13 - Second Bridge.wav

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None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database

No errors occurred

End of status report

–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.6

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Submit result: 6VNtAK6X1Ow6pYyed9Qbhdkp_bs- has been confirmed
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (5/5) Accurately ripped
2 | (5/5) Accurately ripped
3 | (5/5) Accurately ripped
4 | (5/5) Accurately ripped
5 | (5/5) Accurately ripped
6 | (5/5) Accurately ripped
7 | (5/5) Accurately ripped
8 | (5/5) Accurately ripped
9 | (5/5) Accurately ripped
10 | (5/5) Accurately ripped
11 | (5/5) Accurately ripped
12 | (5/5) Accurately ripped
13 | (5/5) Accurately ripped


==== Log checksum 3992DEFD1CD246F09F07F089A2F7BE25817A52538A79628C29A98385C240D694 ====

Thanks to the Original ripper !