The first Church album recorded after the original quartet changed forever following drummer Richard Ploog’s departure, Priest = Aura let the underpinning melancholy of so many earlier Church albums turn into a dark, brooding force. There was plenty of near-winsome and vague mystic moments at the start but as the album progressed through songs like “The Disillusionist” and “Chaos,” the effect was of a building tidal wave like a threatening future still to be fully comprehended.

– Ned Raggett