Magician Among the Spirits

For a while in the mid-1990s it seemed like the Church’s race was run, with only Steve Kilbey and Marty Willson-Piper flying the flag, but Peter Koppes returned and, crucially, a new full time drummer joined, Tim Powles, who would also turn out to be a brilliant engineer and producer for the group. The result was a reinvented Church, caring less about pop’s brass ring in favor of more exploratory and mysterious songs. Koppes’s title track was a fifteen minute masterwork in that vein, while a gripping, extremely moody cover of Cockney Rebel’s “Ritz” was equally striking.