Lords Of The New Church - In the temple of wave worship

The term "supergroup" has taken on a rather unflattering meaning these days. As if it were merely a scheme designed to empty the pockets of fans of the various bands involved. Or a bolted-together, redundant creation that just piles up talent without any common thread. None of that applies to Lords Of The New Church. The project formed by Stiv Bators – already a proto-punk hero of the Cbgb era at the helm of Dead Boys – Brian James (The Damned), Nick Turner (The Barracudas) and Dave Tregunna (Sham 69) was a dazzling comet streaking across the starry sky of the Eighties. So dazzling, in fact, that hardly anyone noticed it pass by. Here we'll try to give it the credit it deserves, tracing its story from its debut in the full swing of the wave epic right up to its unpredictable post-2000 reunion.

Prologue

It's 1981, a time of rapid, dizzying change. The bony Stiv Bators (Steven John Bator) – having cut a solo record for Bomp and dodged Vietnam thanks to a frame so emaciated it earned him the description "an ill nourished imp" (!) – leaves the States for England. There, together with the survivors of Sham 69, he releases an album ("Only Lovers Left Alive") under the name Wanderers, loaded with political content, which also features a rock version of the Dylan-esque "The Times They Are A-Changin'". The record passes almost unnoticed, but it's precisely out of that band's ashes that Lords Of The New Church will be born.

Bators and former Sham 69 bassist Dave Tregunna decide to join forces with Brian James (ex-guitarist of Damned and Tanz der Youth) and former Barracudas drummer Nick Turner. They're practically all punk pioneers, yet they have something more complex and structured in mind, a more professional, better-produced sound. Practically blasphemy to hordes of first-wave punks, who indeed will hold it against them. Not so, however, the new wave fans, who had already grasped the revolution underway and were applauding the contemporaneous shifts of Stranglers, Magazine, Wire and company.

The temple opens its doors

This evolved formula is exactly what drives the self-titled debut album The Lords Of The New Church (1982). A record that hurls the depraved fury of Stooges and New York Dolls into a vortex of wave suggestions, marrying raw instinct with sumptuous melodic openings. Like the truly memorable "Open Your Eyes", irresistible in its thrilling dancefloor stride, which underpins a perfect alternation between the bridge – nervy and fractured, à-la Television – and the chorus, as catchy as it is abrasive, straight out of the pop handbook, right up to the surprising horn blast in the finale. It has everything a hit needs, but it will only become one in Canada, where it surprisingly cracks the Top 40.

Not far behind is the other potential hit, "Russian Roulette", a falsely breezy ballad that hides, behind the catchy rhymes of its chorus, a fiercely sardonic lyric ("I'm on a helicopter ride through Vietnam/ I'm the Leicester Square/ Kid I'm superman. I'm putting weight for the Oscar… Hey hey hey we're in the movie/ I feel up and I feel groovy").

These are the two bombshells of an album that, in any case, doesn't disappoint from first track to last, thanks to a sound that's both metallic and impetuous, with drumming that's a call to arms, a thunderous bass that hits you in the gut, and an hysterical, piercing electric guitar. Bators' sinister wail guides the listener through a rollercoaster of heart-pounding emotions, from the darkest, most apocalyptic moments of the opening "New Church", a tribal dark liturgy worthy of Sisters Of Mercy, and the even more funereal bacchanal of "Portobello", to the almost hardcore jolts of hyperkinetic tracks like "Question Of Temperature" (a Balloon Farm cover), "Lil Boys Play With Dolls", a devoted homage to New York Dolls set to a punk'n'roll beat, and "Apocalypso", the climax of this blazing fury that takes no prisoners.

Halfway through sits the splendid "Livin' On Livin'", played out entirely in half-light, with a pulsing bass and a despondent Joy Division-esque spleen, while "Holy War" seals this casket of post-punk dissonance and blasphemy, with its fevered gait, its disorienting little choruses and its arsenal of hypnotic guitars.

Even the lyrics turn out to be surprisingly mature, sending out a message of freedom and revolt in the age of Reaganite hedonism: “Truth can’t be found on the television/ Throw away youth ya gotta take a stand/ Music is your only weapon/ Spanners in the works go start your gang” (from "New Church").

The Lords Of The New Church is a spell cast: the Fun House of the Stooges, Cbgb and the basements of English punk are reincarnated in the desecrated Church of Bators and co., the ideal temple for new, outrageous rituals. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

The Lords strike while the iron is hot: that same year they set off on their first American tour, later immortalized via a Boston radio broadcast on Live At The Spit (1988). The songs from the debut are presented in a decidedly starker, rawer version, with Bators playing the part of a sadistic priest-satyr on stage. Introducing "Russian Roulette", for instance, he reveals: "The other day we played a strange game. We passed around six girls, and one of them had the clap".

Legendary performances documented in this great show at the Marquee in London, which fed the cult of the New Church. It's even said that Bators, already the victim of various onstage accidents, was nearly strangled by the microphone cord during a Lords performance, left "clinically dead" for a few minutes. Critic Dave Thompson would go so far as to argue that the English supergroup represented "the first case since the days of the Bromley Contingent (the Sex Pistols' fanbase) in which a band manages to impose its identity on an audience without paying tribute to the idols of fashion".

Sacred and profane

The Lords Of The New Church, however, keep operating under the radar, always far from the glittering wave spotlight of the era. And yet their second album, Is Nothing Sacred? (1983), also has several potential hits up its sleeve, once again revealing the full melodic talent of Bators and co., their ability to craft catchy choruses without ever caving to the lure of the mainstream. Something does change at the production level, though: the claustrophobic, dark atmospheres of the debut give way to a fresher, airier sound, with horns and keyboards smoothing out the rough edges of their guitar-rock.

The masterpiece of this new direction is the opening "Dance With Me", a dizzying dance-gothic number with another shimmering melody in the vein of "Open Your Eyes" crowning a flawless construction: fatalistic vocals, sinister Stranglers-style backing vocals, neurotic guitars and anguished sax flourishes. On top of that, a damned lyric alluding to voodoo and bondage. It has all it takes to become a hit, but its run is cut short when the beautiful video directed by Derek Jarman gets censored by MTV over its allusions to child pornography. The Nouvelle Vague cover (2006) would later try to give it a few crumbs of posthumous (and thoroughly deserved) fame. The atmospheric "Live For Today", a Grass Roots cover, also skilfully channels this vein of suspended melancholy, led by Bators' sobbing wail and his bandmates' backing vocals, in service of yet another top-class melodic opening. Adding extra polish is the contribution of a guru like Todd Rundgren, on keyboards and behind the mixing desk.

Elsewhere the band ends up a little trapped in the snare of citation: the shadow looming largest is that of His Satanic Majesty the Rolling Stones, whom Bators and James almost seem to be paying homage to, aping the Jagger-Richards duo. But not only them. The still-gripping "Bad Timing" winks at brother Devoto's Magazine, "Black Girl, White Girl" and "Goin' Downtown" sound like a rather deflated Iggy Pop, "Johnny Too Bad" even chases a few contemporary ska suggestions, while tracks like "Don't Worry Children" and "Night Is Calling", overstuffed with horns, lack the knack for crafting hooks that the band had so amply proven up to that point.

Ultimately, aside from that dazzling opener, which alone is worth the price of admission, the Lords of Is Nothing Sacred? remain somewhat stuck in limbo, halfway between the rough magic of the debut and an attempt at pop softening that even they themselves seem not entirely convinced by. But the talent is there. And it remains fully intact.

Despite the lukewarm reception from audiences (and from a rather distracted critical press), The Lords Of The New Church don't let up on their dizzying production pace, and in 1984 they release their third album in three years, Method To My Madness.

Described by Ira Robbins as "a cross between Iggy Pop's 'Raw Power' and Billy Idol's 'Rebel Yell'", the album puts the punk-rock flavours of the debut back at the centre of the plate, helped along by Chris Tsangerides' grittier production, but without entirely sacrificing the more layered sound of the second record. Thus comes the blistering new boogie of the title track (one of their most incendiary numbers ever), paving the way for an alternation of full-throttle rock shards ("S.F. & T.", "Fresh Flesh", "Kiss Of Death") and softer tracks, like the melancholic ballad "When Blood Runs Cold", with a whiff of Lloyd Cole about it, complete with a string section, and "I Never Believed", which renews what is ultimately the band's most original formula - a blend of punk-rock's wild instinct and a melodic vocation borrowed from the leading lights of the hook-writing craft in wave territory (in this case, one's mind runs to early Simple Minds, as well as the ever-present Magazine). Between the two sides sits "My Kingdom Come", which in fact recalls the blond Idol's more theatrical posturing and, placed at the close of the tracklist, sounds almost like an epitaph for the Lords' saga.

A bit of extra flavour is added by the jarring soul backing vocals weaving through the murky basslines of "Murder Style" and the amusing spoken word inserts of "Method To My Madness" (courtesy of Irs Records boss Miles Copeland).

Method To My Madness is probably the Lords trilogy's least peak-filled album, but it strikes a good balance between the different souls of their sound, showcasing an ensemble still inspired and tight-knit, even though their only real successes were sporadic appearances on the indie charts.

Proof of the supergroup's still-intact verve comes with a cover you wouldn't expect: an irreverent "Like A Virgin" that defaces Madonna's dance classic in a lewd horror-punk parody, complete with a final belch. It's the gem tucked inside The Killer Lords (1985), a compilation that, alongside their classics, also includes two other covers: John Fogerty's "Hey Tonight" and ex-Advert Tim Smith's "Lord's Prayer".

Bators also made it onto the big screen, with a small but significant role in Bill Fishman's comedy "Tapeheads", playing the inimitable Dick Slammer.

Meanwhile, the band has to deal with several line-up changes, with the addition of a second guitarist, Alistair Simmons, Tregunna briefly replaced by Grant Fleming (former road manager of Sham 69), and Turner replaced by Danny Fury.

Then, after 1988, things take a turn for the worse. Bators suffers a back injury and James places an ad in a newspaper looking for a new singer. "Just temporarily," he specifies. But Stiv doesn't take it well. It's he who will insist on putting an end to the Lords saga, and in the most mocking way possible: on May 2, 1989, at the Astoria in London, during the supergroup's final concert, he wears a t-shirt with a blown-up copy of James's ad printed on it.

The Church officially closes its doors. James turns to his first (hugely unfortunate) solo album, while the former Dead Boy tries to put together a new band with Dee Dee Ramone and former Godfathers guitarist Kris Dollimore. But then, in June 1990, an absurd and tragic turn of events upends everything: Bators is struck by a car in Paris and dies shortly after from his injuries. For the Lords saga, it's the cruelest of endings: Bators had been the soul of the project, its priest, its voice, the punk seal of approval on the whole operation. The death of the gangly frontman, one of the most hot-blooded heirs to Iguana Pop, deprives the contemporary rock scene of a performer of undeniable charisma, and the history of punk of one of its founding fathers.

The Mass Is Not Over

While the myth of the Lords Of The New Church is kept alive by the proselytizing of a handful of devoted surviving disciples, who keep spreading the original gospel even in an age of post-punk revival and nu-new wave, in 2001 the unthinkable happens.

Through his manager, Ian Grant, James gets in touch with singer StevenMarque to discuss the possibility of reforming Lords Of The New Church. With two goals in mind: adding a new chapter to the band's history and, at the same time, paying tribute to it. The two lay the groundwork for the project in Austin, Texas, where Brian was touring alongside Wayne Kramer and Manny of the Stone Roses in a band called Mad for the Racket. StevenMarque then flies to Brighton to record the new material, together with James and Tregunna, brought back on board for the occasion. The three officially revive the Lords Of The New Church name, also bringing in Jez Miller and Ozzy (formerly of The Brian James Gang and Gunfire Dance) for the sessions. The result is a three-track EP, Believe It Or Not, produced by James himself for Ndn Records.

The new lineup sets off on a string of European shows in 2002, but Miller and Ozzy drop out before the tour wraps up. James, however, won't give up: he wants to keep pushing forward with this reunion madness, and it's StevenMarque who comes up with the right name. A huge Lords fan and respected leader of LustKillers: Adam Becvare. Same post-punk sensibility, same frame of reference, somewhere between glam and gothic, horror and decadence. The responsibility is enormous - stepping into high priest Bators's shoes - but Becvare doesn't back down. He becomes the new singer. Drummer Steve Murray takes Oz's place, completing the lineup.

The Church officially reopens its doors. With a new album, Hang On (2003), and a European tour. It's the most unpredictable of reunions, and one of the very few remembered for being a "supergroup" reunion, further proof of just how peculiar the Lords phenomenon really is.

The album's ten tracks attempt to resurrect the myth as if no time had passed at all, complete with a dedication to Stiv Bators in the liner notes. The approach is the same, if anything even sharper-edged and more punk. But Becvare, however hard he tries, can't match Bators's charisma, and the rest of the band plays on autopilot, missing that spark of madness and melodic grace that had illuminated the original line-up.

There are, however, tracks capable of at least reviving the feel of the old Lords, starting with the opener "Heaven Stepped Down" - the single, written by James and StevenMarque, with cover art and package designed by the latter - a love letter to an entire world, with its polished hard-glam-rock guitars, its hooks and its falsely reassuring backing vocals. James tries to tap into his songwriting talent (he wrote "New Church", for instance) by setting up the sonic shocks of "Hallucination" - with wild vocalizations drowned in a sea of distortion and electric jolts - and the even more turbulent "Where Are You Now", with clattering guitars that almost drown out the singer's voice. The production, too, admittedly sounds a bit thin, and doesn't do justice to tracks that - like the ballad "Savior Self" and the pounding "Hashashin" - might have held some interesting potential. Closing out the record is "Paint The Town Red", almost a last testament from the band, with its claustrophobic atmosphere and piercing drumming.

The following European tour ruthlessly exposes the ambiguous nature of this second life of the Lords: the fans only want the old 80s warhorses and have no interest in the new songs, while James and StevenMarque have no intention of indulging in a mere nostalgia operation. So, having fulfilled its duty of honoring the legacy of Bators and the supergroup, the project soon runs out of steam. At the end of the 2003 tour, the Church closes its doors once again, this time - barring a miracle - for good.

Thanks in part to the unexpected reunion, the cult following has grown, and so has the band's critical standing, helped along by the rehabilitation of much of the 80s underground at the hands of new generations. "They updated the Stooges for the post-punk era," Ira Robbins recalls in Trouser Press. That alone would be quite something, but perhaps Lords Of The New Church were even more than that.

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