Of Skins and Heart by The Church

Of Skins and Heart, the Church's debut, arrived on EMI Parlophone in April 1981, and it catches the Sydney band before the haze rolled in. Steve Kilbey sings and plays bass, Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper twine their two guitars together, and Nick Ward, gone by the time the record reached the shops, drums on his only Church album. Chris Gilbey and Bob Clearmountain produced, and the sound is tighter and tougher than what came later, closer to new wave than to dream, though Kilbey's half-surreal words are already drifting off somewhere strange.

Kilbey wrote seven songs alone and shared credit on two. "The Unguarded Moment", co-written with Mikella Parker, then his wife, was the one that broke them and is still their biggest hit, reaching 22 in Australia and 19 in New Zealand, while "Is This Where You Live" became a concert favorite. Abroad, the album was reshuffled and issued as The Church in 1982.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.