8+

“Chaos" by The Church which clocks in at 9:34

When the cards are stacked up against you and chaos is taking over...what then? Where does a person turn in times of dire need?

It would be the case that my computer crashed as I was finishing up my first version of this post, right? Chalk it up to chaos. The world is full of it right now, but you know this. You've been following closely and noticing that Krampus might be getting banned in Austria...that many female Hollywood stars are just too darn busy to shave their armpits...that La Toya Jackson has been made a reserve police officer in Indiana...that Robert Smith has writer's block. Yikes. All signs point to something potentially apocalyptic on the horizon - so what should we all do? Hey, as the saying goes: "when the going gets tough, the tough listen to music".

Well it seems that I often remember the song "Chaos" when the going gets tough. Recently, the going toughened up a bit for me and I, once again, re-discovered this song, and album, by The Church. Now I'm paying it forward.

The Church is a band that has been largely overlooked their entire career (at least in the States). While similarly sounding bands such as Echo & the Bunnymen and U2 achieved legend status over the past two decades, The Church has been relegated to one-hit wonder land with most people only knowing them for their hit song "Under The Milky Way". Even some who might consider themselves well versed in late '80s/early '90s "alternative" wouldn't immediately know just how excellent their 1992 album Priest = Aura really is - heck, I even overlooked it myself when putting together EAR FARM's Overlooked of the '90s feature. Silly silly dumb dumb, let's not let this happen again. How dare the world turn its back on The Church!

The Church's Priest = Aura is a fantastic album in terms of ominous wide-open guitar rock with stand out lyrics and vocals. In fact, I don't think it's a stretch to consider it the yin to Achtung Baby's yang...or something. How it's not gotten more acclaim is beyond me, but you're getting a super introduction with the song "Chaos". Everything that the album is about, both sonically and thematically, are present here...everything that it is to be caught up in a whirlwind of chaos are within this one song and you're going to love it because it loves you. You'll listen to it with headphones on and it just might save you from a storm of chaos. Then you'll forget about "Chaos" for a while until, at some point in the near future, you need a nice nine and a half minute break from the world. A break from the chaos. When that happens just remember that you've always got The Church on your side.

After all, where does a person turn in times of dire need? To The Church, of course.

Buy Priest = Aura HERE on Amazon.

EAR FARM's 8+ is a weekly feature that showcases songs longer than 8 minutes. In the recent past these songs were featured on EF's 8+:
Bark Psychosis - “All Different Things"
Deodato - “Also Sprach Zarathustra"
Grateful Dead - “Terrapin Station"
Suicide -“Frankie Teardrop"
Red House Painters - “River"
The Human League - “Morale... / You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"
Arlo Guthrie - “Alice's Restaurant Massacre"
Alex Skolnick Trio - “War Pigs"

To see a full list of every song featured in EAR FARM's 8+ click HERE.