Four and a half decades in, The Church have announced their 28th studio album — a stat that would close out most careers and is, for this lot, simply Thursday. Lacuna lands October 30 via Cooking Vinyl, 17 tracks deep.

Lead single “Western” was cut in Austin, Texas, and wears the location on its sleeve — Steve Kilbey has said the title came straight from the setting, a nod to a childhood spent absorbing TV Westerns.

It arrives paired with second track “Martian Skyline”, the pair following on from last year’s “Sacred Echoes (Part Two)” as the record’s advance run.

Kilbey calls the album “intense, forlorn, and exultant” — as tidy a summary as any for a band still finding new corners inside their own sound: jangling guitars, atmospheric post-punk, dream-pop haze. Lacuna follows 2024’s Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars and caps off a stretch that’s seen the band run an extensive Singles Tour retrospective through Australia and North America, three-hour sets and all. Out October 30 on CD and coloured vinyl and available to pre-order here.

Related