Steve Kilbey calls “Sky And Hill” his closest attempt at country and western, while “Forever” takes The Church into a darker, piano-led space on the road to their new album *Lacuna*.
The Church have released two new songs from their forthcoming album Lacuna, giving listeners another indication of just how broad the band’s musical palette has become more than four decades after they first formed in Sydney.
“Sky And Hill” and “Forever” are released together as a double single ahead of Lacuna, which will be released on 30 October 2026 through Cooking Vinyl. The songs take markedly different approaches, with “Sky And Hill” built around acoustic guitar and a loose, earthy feel, while “Forever” develops from Ashley Naylor’s piano into one of the album’s more dramatic moments.
For Steve Kilbey, “Sky And Hill” represents an unusual musical departure.
“This is about as country and western as I get, folks,” Kilbey says.
He wrote the song in the garden at Arlyn Studios in Austin, Texas, during an extremely hot afternoon. The acoustic guitar riff reminded him of the Faces, with the vocal melody following the guitar.
“I’m sure some Nashville cat wouldn’t think it’s country at all, but there you go,” Kilbey says. “A mélange of styles… and me imagining I’m an alt cowboy. Pretty funny, if you think about it.”
The song’s Southwestern flavour gives Lacuna another dimension, but it is still recognisably The Church. Rather than abandoning the band’s atmospheric approach, “Sky And Hill” folds a more traditional rock and country influence into the psychedelic and dreamlike sound that has developed across their catalogue.
“Forever” takes a very different route.
The song began with Naylor sitting at the grand piano at Arlyn Studios, experimenting with chords. Kilbey joined him and the pair developed the music together before the lyrics appeared.
“Ash was sitting at the grand piano, playing around with some chords at Arlyn one morning. I joined in making suggestions and we came up with the music,” Kilbey explains.
Naylor also provides what Kilbey describes as the song’s “George Harrison” lead lines. The arrangement eventually developed into a deeply emotional ballad, with the band working on the middle-eight and outro to build the track towards its dramatic climax.
Kilbey describes the vocal as a departure for him and says “Forever” is one of his favourite songs on the album.
The two songs follow “Sacred Echoes (Part II)”, “Western” and “Martian Skyline” as previews of Lacuna. Together, the five tracks suggest an album less concerned with staying inside a particular stylistic boundary than with following each song wherever it leads.
That approach has been central to The Church since their formation in Sydney in 1980. Their debut album Of Skins and Heart produced “The Unguarded Moment” in 1981, while Starfish took the band to a wider international audience in 1988 through “Under the Milky Way”, “Reptile” and “Antenna”. Their catalogue subsequently continued to move through psychedelic rock, dream pop, alternative rock and more experimental territory. The band was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2010.
The current chapter has been particularly prolific. The Church released The Hypnogogue in 2023, followed by Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars in 2024. The latter continued the narrative established by The Hypnogogue, extending a period in which the band continued creating new material rather than relying solely on its historic catalogue.
The lineup has also evolved significantly. Steve Kilbey remains the founding member at the centre of the band, while Ian Haug, Jeffrey Cain and Ashley Naylor became part of the expanded lineup following major changes during the 2010s and 2020s. Long-time drummer and producer Tim Powles remains an important part of the band’s recording history.
That ability to absorb change without losing the band’s identity is evident in the five Lacuna tracks released so far. “Sky And Hill” may be Kilbey’s self-described alt-cowboy experiment, while “Forever” heads somewhere more melancholy, but both remain part of the same expansive musical world.
With 17 tracks, Lacuna is set to continue that exploration when it is released on 30 October.
LACUNA
Lumbini Grove
Western
Ferrari
Sky River
Winter
Have You Been Here Before
The Lemurian
Everytime
Sky And Hill
Paladin
Martian Skyline
I Want It
The Place of Eternal Spring
Rapture
Forever
Lumbini Theme (Slight Return)
Sacred Echoes
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