Not to be confused with THE Church, of “Under the Milky Way” fame, these guys are brand new experimental psych crooners outta Portland. Two brothers + others. Pretty. Pretty epic, pretty creepy. Would please anyone into the Born Ruffians, though I seem to be alone on that bandwagon. Actually, not too many steps removed from USVS (cough Radiohead). Or more far-out Wilco. Or, wow, Oh Inverted World. Clangy guitar and achey, airy harmonies, lots of bells and effects, undecided or nonexistent tempos. Depressing, passionate, vulnerable wispy vocals a la the Antlers, Thom Yorke, etc. The recording’s a little muddy, but whatevs. Transportive, layered, emotive. Good stuff.

try: 3, 5, 7, 8
FCC clean

1. soft start: bells + effects. drumroll + clang. cohesion/vocals at minute one. slow and pretty, but with super abrasive guitars. nice new wavey drum pickup in minute three. slows to eerie vocal vamp, more scattershot drums... an event.
2. steamroll slow. interesting percussion / background effects. pretty/creepy backing ‘ah’s.
*3. starts clangy, goes gentle and plinky. backing, ripple-drop ‘oh’s. bulges into somber/epic clang guitar. backs off, builds back. a great ride.
4. muffled clarinet, hard piano, clicks, sampled rocking chair creaks, and some high-frequency noise in the back too. those of you over 30 probably won’t be able to hear that shit anyway.
*5. draggy, druggy, creepy as hell. at :19, hard, jagged anthemic downtempo clang guitar. bruisey thodder piano/bass (?). ethereal harmonies. fade out.
6. effectsy, meandering start builds to pretty picked (almost spanish) electric over upbeat hand drums. guitars go electroclash in the last half. nice eerie plinked piano and bass.
*7. wince-worthy skipped sampled effects to start. start at :37! lone mournful guitar + super powerful sad sack vocals over hand drums + tribal wailing. fucking great build --> clang guitar and dungeon bass. ends soft and bare.
*8. oh wow. minimalist to start. pretty harmonies over disconcertingly discordant upfront guitar. some backing effects about midway in. slow and expansive. false ending 1:20 to end -- the last minute is unexpectedly beautiful.