Events

[ROCK] It’s hard to believe that The Church’s most successful single, “Under the Milky Way” (famously covered by Sia not that long ago) turned 30 last year, along with the album it came from, Starfish. Starfish went gold in the US, signaling a triumphant turnaround after the Australian quartet had been dropped by Warner, leaving them without a label in this country (until Arista took a gamble, putting a $500,000 investment into the making of Starfish). Though they lost co-founder Marty Wilson-Piper in 2013, they went on to release a new record with Powederfinger’s Ian Haug, Man Woman Life Death Infinity, in 2017, and are celebrating the anniversary of Starfish with a fairly extensive tour that brings them to Town Ballroom on Friday, April 12. Although thought of as a psychedelic revival or ‘paisley underground’ band, The Church is also known for its blend of melodic jangle-pop with bits of new wave peppered in, reminiscent of early R.E.M. Front man Steve Kilbey’s delicate-gravel vocal delivery tends to add an air of addictive mystery that colors all of their output. Curiously, “Under the Milky Way” was tampered with to create a much denser mix than what The Church had originally intended: Arista let an in-house engineer monkey with the backing track on a then-brand-new Synclavier sequencer, filling up the space with additional sound until he was satisfied (according to the story, backward bagpipes are part of the mix). Although a bit more slick than what The Church normally got up to, Arista mogul Clive Davis insisted it was a hit. And he was right. Starfish remains a crowning achievement — a snapshot of The Church balancing their underground tone with something more polished and accessible, but not to the point of being awash in 1980’s production trademarks (and unadorned with strings, unlike their previous release, 1985’s lush Heydey). For the tour, the band is playing the album in its entirety followed a second set of career-spanning cuts. There’s no opener listed on the bill, doors are at 7:00 p.m., $29.