NIGHT LIFE: THE CLUB SCENE : Long-Lasting : The Church have been around for a decade, and their recent hits also pass the test of time.

With nine albums in 10 years, Australian psychedelic guitar pop rockers The Church could probably play almost as long as The Grateful Dead, but they probably won’t. What they probably will do is sell out The Ventura Theatre this Sunday night.

The current Church record, “Gold Afternoon Fix,” is the band’s biggest seller to date.

The first single, “Metropolis,” was seemingly on KROQ at least every hour, if not every 10 minutes. At 4:44, “Metropolis” is a little long for most radio stations; the new single, “Terra Nova Cain,” is even longer at 5:10, but both are getting played--a lot.

The Church has been on tour for a couple of months--the California gigs will be the last dates for a while. “We’ve been up and down and across the United States during the past two months,” singer Steve Kilbey said in a recent interview. “The album came out in February--it’s not doing so well now; it’s sort of going away. But we’ll definitely do all the songs on it. The people in California haven’t heard it yet. Then after the tour we’ll take some time off and start writing some new songs for the next album.”

Along with Paul Kelly and The Messengers, INXS, The Chills and a zillion others, The Church are yet another successful Australian band.

“I don’t know for sure why there are so many successful Australian bands,” Kilbey said, “but possibly it’s that the music industry is different down there. They don’t insist on conformity and allow a band more time to develop. I’m not sure.”

Church fans are generally young, dressed in black, with plenty of serious looks and probably enough money for a Church T-shirt. It’ll definitely be a lot mellower than a Church gig in France.

“We were going to play somewhere and it got canceled at the last minute,” Kilbey said. “So someone asked us if we’d play another venue and we said, ‘sure.’ Anyway, it turned out to be this biker hangout in the back of a garage somewhere. It was pretty scary at first, but the bikers in France were pretty passive. They weren’t like your California motorcycle gangs.”

The Church features Kilbey on bass supported by a pair of guitarists, Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper. Longtime drummer Richard Ploog is taking a year off and will be replaced by Jay Dee Daugherty.

Just as much fun as The Church will be the openers, The Blue Aeroplanes.

A British cult band that’s been around forever, the band is finally making some inroads in America. They play artsy smartsy rock ‘n’ roll, much like Wire, XTC, and Shreikback.