DOWNLOAD: The Church - "Tantalized" (free download on Amazon.com)

Aside for the bad 80's mullets on the cover photo, Heyday is a major leap forward from Seance. This is the first disc that sounds like The Church were working as a cohesive unit and eight of the disc's original ten tracks were co-written by all four members of the band. As an interesting footnote, Steve Kilbey co-wrote one track, "Youth Worshiper", with then girlfriend Karin Jansson who later co-wrote "Under the Milky Way" on Starfish.

Peter Walsh (who helped Simple Minds and China Crisis break into the US market) produced the disc and gave the band a bright and energetic sound. Walsh layers strings, keyboards and horns into the mix but these accompaniments are tastefully integrated into the songs so none of the tracks have the dated feel of Seance. The disc is also helped along by what sounds to be "real" drumming (as opposed to the drum trigger sound of Seance) and Richard Ploog adds some innovative rhythms to songs like "Myrrh" and the Middle-Eastern flavored "Trance Ending".

There are some serious memorable melodies and hooks on this disc which are powered by the ringing guitar sounds of Willson-Piper and Koppes and a good starting point into this disc are the songs "Tantalized" and "Already Yesterday". The majority of the songs keep to this upbeat pace with the only exception being the moody instrumental "Happy Hunting Ground".





There are three bonus tracks this time around: "As You Will" (the b-side of "Already Yesterday" which is sung by Peter Koppes), "The View" (the b-side of "Tantalized" which is sung by Marty Willson-Piper) and "Trance Ending" (the b-side of "Columbus" which is noted in the liner notes as being one of Steve's favorite songs from the Heyday-era sessions).

While Starfish received the mass-media acclaim, Heyday is really the album that broke The Church into the US market.

Links:
The Church