Customer Reviews

Painkiller

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Church's lead vocalist, Steve Kilbey, has reached a new zenith with a solo CD that is akin to a new Church masterpiece. The dreamy, psychedelic and glorious sounds are all present to accompany his resonant, intoxicating and refined vocals. To begin with one must mention the instrumental "File Under Travel" which is a pulsating classic that would be idyllic for a James Bond film. Even more essential are the CD's first four songs namely the euphoric "Outbound", the mesmerizing "Wolfe" and the luminous "Celestial" followed by the spellbinding "Crystalline Rush". Kilbey's bass playing virtuoisty is very alive and well on the riveting "Oenone". I really cannot describe the magnificence of Steve Kilbey unless I quote a music critic who states that "Steve Kilbey is the elaborate and ethereal Australian mystic that must be heard." The song "Spirit In Flame" aptly translates the critic's laudatory praise. Buy this CD now !

Steve Kilbey - the lead vocalist, bass player and cryptic lyricist of the excellent and underrated, Australian rock band The Church - is an eclectic record maker responsible for some fascinating and very diverse solo recordings among which my favorites are Remindlessness, Narcosis + More, Dabble, and his latest album, the intoxicating Painkiller. As Brien Comerford - another reviewer here (and The Church devotee) - would say "It's all Killer, and no filler!", Killer being Kilbey's nickname.

Picking favorite songs is not an easy task, but I am going to give it a try, anyway.
In no particular order (except 1 - 4):

1.
Outbound: my favorite song on Painkiller and a very convincing opening track. Pounding bass, intense and edgy lead vocal. One of the most memorable Steve Kilbey solo songs ever. Lyric sample: "White hippy Moses like an aphid in the roses/Universal inverse in inverted poses/Like a snort of amnesia, a ball up your noses/Not what the man in the street supposes."

2.
Spirit In Flame: this song is my second most favorite song on Painkiller.
Dark. Mysterious. Very cool. Makes me think of the Narcosis + More album.

3.
Not What You Say: the last track is my third most favorite song on Painkiller. It's a track, which is very hard to describe - a song you'll have to hear for yourself in all of its 12 + minutes glory. Kilbey stops singing as soon as 1 minute and 35 seconds into the song, and then there's a long, hypnotising, instrumental passage lasting approximately 4 minutes until Kilbey's vocal returns - a powerful, goosebump inducing moment.

4.
Celestial: a low-key, self-assured lead vocal, soft guitar sounds, mellotron flute, and appropriate space sounds all add up to one of the most dreamy and mesmerizing songs on Painkiller. Another favorite.

5.
Crystalline Rush: again a beautifully understated and self-assured lead vocal by Steve Kilbey, who's often been known to half-sing / half-speak his cryptic lyrics (Aura off The Church album Priest = Aura is a good example of this). The chiming guitars on Crystalline Rush are reminiscent of The Church.

6.
Song For The Masking: one of my favorites, too. Great intro...ominous drums, and then heavy bass - followed by some weird keyboard sounds. Spooky.

7.
Oenone: the most up-tempo song on the cd / album. Again, a great intro - which leads to a repetitive though engagingly energetic guitar riff.

And these are just the highlights!
HIGHLY recommended!

This is Steve Kilbey's best album with or without The Church in years. It will satisfy both listeners who appreciate melody and experimentation without excluding either. There are songs in which Kilbey stretches his voice far beyond the safety of his signature speak/sing. Songs that retain atmosphere without diminishing rhythm. Accessible without going shallow. A rich but simple pleasure that will awaken the sleeping child inside and escort through psychedelic dreams.

I'm about to type something really reckless. You ready? Here it goes: If "Painkiller" were the only thing to Steve Kilbey's name, he would still deserve the same amounts of accolades that he's received with the Church since 1981. I guess I wouldn't blame you if you thought I was full of it, but I really think that Kilbey's latest solo album is something to behold alongside any "classic" album to be born out of the new wave era and its inconsistent aftermath. Steve Kilbey has finally made an album every bit as good as a Church album. I'm chuckling around lots of superlatives, aren't I? Well, I mean every one.

In 2001 Steve Kilbey released "Dabble," a sad little reminder that solo albums leave a lot to be desired when the rest of the band isn't there to round things out (just ask a Beatles fan). "Painkiller" proves that wrong and then some. It probably helped to have Church member Tim Powles along for drumming and production.

But like many things Church-related, you aren't going to "get" it the first time. Nor the second. Maybe not even the third. My first reaction to "Outbound" was something more along the lines of "what the H, E, double hockey sticks is this all about?" than "wow, this is really, really good." Maybe it was the singular musical drone of the verses, the shouted lyrics. But after numerous listens, that chorus just hit me out of nowhere, with the acoustic guitar backdrop, radiotronics, and Kilbey muttering "I am, I am, I am..."

"Wolfe," an exercise in swirling noise, might even be better. "Celestial" and "Crystalline Rush" are just about note perfect replications of the Church aesthetic, if not the sound, shining through in tunefulness. In fact if Steve Kilbey were to have just made the first four songs and let them loose on the internet, we could be satisfied for years listening to them over and over again. But it doesn't stop there, obviously.

Track 6 is the mighty space jam "File Under Travel," an aggressive, noisy, otherworldly sound that is guaranteed to leave an impression on you. I could go on and on about how the quality of the second half of the album matches the quality of the first, but the less I have to say the better. This is just really, really good. In a sadly apt metaphor, I find myself positively addicted to "Painkiller." I don't end up being addicted to albums like I used to since I have more music and less time in which to hear it, but "Painkiller" has nabbed me hook, line and sinker. I will not recover easily.

This isn't just for Church fans. It's for anybody.

Steve Kilbey is the singer, bassist and main lyricist of the legendary Australian band, The Church. `Painkiller' marks Kilbey's first solo album in seven years and it is the equivalent of some of The Church's finest records. The record feels as if it were recorded on a satellite and beamed back to Earth. Several of the songs have an atmospheric sheen of flickering electronics and sonic experimentation. These touches do not distract but enhance the spacey feel of the acoustics.

`Painkiller' opens with "Outbound" a song that features a barking Syd Barrett-esque lyric, "White hippy Moses like an aphid in the roses/Universal inverse in inverted poses/Like a snort of amnesia, a ball up your noses/Not what the man in the street supposes." "Outbound" doesn't stay rooted in its madness as it also swoons and sways around the chorus while recalling David Bowie's "Hallo Spaceboy" at times. "Wolfe" offers a refuge from the space rock of "Outbound" with its Dylanesque snarl and upbeat time changes.

However, the record shines when it stays rooted in the space rock vibe that dominates this album. "Celestial" is reminiscent of previous Church glories touched by bits of mellotron and ambient instrumentation. The swirly and bass heavy "Song For The Masking" is a greasy and droney track that leads into the lengthy space rock explosion of "File Under Travel." Other highlights include the trippy "Spirit in Flame" and the angry vibe of "Forever Lasts For Nothing." The album concludes with the 31-minute ambient epic "Not What You Say."

I've made it a habit - well, call it a ritual - that each time I receive a new Church or Steve Kilbey album, I get that first listen in while lying down in a dark room with headphones cranked up. First impressions are important, and I want the music to totally wash over me.

The first time around, I'm looking for that song that causes goosebumps to ripple up and down my arms. The one that makes my body feel suddenly light. That makes me forget myself. There's always at least one like that. A song I latch onto immediately. Others sometimes take a few listens to sink in (and often a song I didn't like for years suddenly worms its way in and becomes an enduring favourite).

Well, after all the hype, I plugged in Painkiller around midnight, while the city slept, and I prepared to be amazed. I'd already heard Outbound on Kilbey's myspace page and been listening to it for a while, so I knew that wouldn't be the one. I'd heard Wolfe too, on several acoustic bootlegs, so that one wouldn't startle me either. But... wait a minute! I'd never heard it like this! As the lead-in began and the music swelled, my eyes popped open and that familiar feeling swept over me. It built even more with Celestial, and Crystalline Rush took it to the ecstatic. It's difficult to describe the beauty of these songs, the feelings of nostalgia and hope they inspire. I guess the best I can do is to say that they cause your chest to expand and swell as though your heart might burst. That's the sort of energy contained in these songs.

And then things suddenly turn darker. Song for the Masking slides in with the sort of baseline that makes your skin crawl and your morals do likewise.

The dissolution truly begins with File Under Travel. This felt like everything Travel by Thought (from The Church's Sceance album) was trying to be but couldn't quite reach. It drives you relentlessly out of yourself until you don't know up from down, left from right, fractured from whole. It's a journey all right, one that shatters your consciousness into a thousand pieces and leaves you disoriented, but strangely open and receptive.

From there to the end of the album was a sonic blur - the songs blended together and pulled me along with them on a rollercoaster journey of pure emotion such that I can't really describe my first impressions of each one. I can only throw down my initial thoughts when I came out of my trance.

One of the things that impressed me most was the intricate structure of the album. It felt like the songs at each end mirrored - or better yet, provided a foil for - each other. The swelling chords and shouted vocals of Wolfe and the easier, wiser, more upbeat retrospective of Forever Lasts for Nothing. The sublime hope of Celestial and the darker, more jaded perspective of Spirit in Flame. But the absolute masterpiece was the placement of the two bookends - Outbound and Not What You Say. Painkiller opens by launching you out into space, beyond the solar system and into unexplored territory. In the middle, the journey turns transdimensional. It's like being sucked into a black hole and dissolved into your component elements. You're gradually reassembled in an entirely new and unfamiliar form, until at the end of the journey you suddenly find yourself drifting eerily at the bottom of the sea, a place you never expected to end up - or have you reached another strange galaxy altogether? You could just as easily be floating in the void.

That last song, Not What You Say, is a particular stroke of genius. It uses some of the same elements as the rest of the songs, a vocal or a melody that gives you something familiar to cling to, setting your mind at ease, before blindsiding you with sounds you never could have anticipated. Its effect is to "unhinge" you. After the initial lyrics set the stage there's a long middle bit where a few simple notes are repeated over and over. Like a metronome, it's incredibly effective at dropping you into a meditative state. The music eventually swells once more and lyrics come in, taking you a bit higher, and then those notes come back and reinforce your trance. You're brought deeper and deeper until finally an odd silence ensues and for twenty minutes you hear the distant song of whales. For a moment I began to come out of it - I thought "what the hell?" and "how long will that go on for?", but every time I considered shutting it off, I simply couldn't. The sounds were absolutely mesmerizing.

Soundscape is an apt description of Kilbey's and The Church's work. This was nothing short of an aural journey through a richly described inner landscape, orchestrated by a master.

Also, Polinski's mixing was inventive and effective. Leaving in odd echoey bits of studio conversation at exactly the right moment was a stroke of genius. Nothing about this album is what you predict or what you expect.

And lest the above sound esoteric or somehow granola, the album totally rocks. It's base-driven in a way that prior stuff wasn't. The base comes fully to the forefront and slithers like a houri through a cloud of incense until you're nearly intoxicated. Combine that with Tim Powles relentless driving beat and you've got rock on an entirely new level.

I have to say that I loved (and still love) Dabble, Kilbey's previous solo album. Blessed One is sublime. Untitled Too, with it's kickass nautical terminology and shouted delivery, hint at some of the vocal territory that would later be explored here. And Time to Say Goodbye is my funeral song, for when my bones are finally eaten by some animal in the desert. But the contrast between these two consecutive solo albums is night and day. The artistic development that took place in those seven years is staggering. This is another world entirely, with a depth and a layering that was never realized on Kilbey's prior solo work (though you always felt he was reaching for it).

This is art that rocks.

Best songs on this one happen to be the shortest: Wolfe and Forever Lasts For Nothing. Outbound and Song for the Masking are also brilliant. Unlike some of Kilbey's songs (and some of The Church's songs), economy and balance are the hallmarks of just about every song on this album. Highly recommended. The album has the thick, layered tunes (think After Everything Now This) and a nice selection of fast rockers.

As I wait patiently for the new Church Album: Untitled #23, I would definitely and highly recommend Painkiller, this album fits well into the multidimensional universe that only Steve Kilbey can create, so much and so many of his workings with the Church and solo have the depth and transcendent qualities that reading an amazing novel can give.. Kilbey sings these songs as stories, and many times we are able to make them our own... What a lovely gift to be a Church fan... BUY THIS and be astonished... these albums should be on Vinyl btw....

Kilbey's best release since The Slow Crack, and perhaps his best yet. Upbeat, and has an almost classic old school Church sound from the 80's. I can't suggest this highly enough for fans of The Church.

Outstanding effort from Kilbey my only issue is that the download of "Not What You Say" (track 11) is 12 minutes and change and the orginal CD version stretches over 31 minutes - what's up with that?????