CHURCH OF MISERY’S HOUSES OF THE UNHOLY: BLOODSOAKED JAMS FROM THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN
If Church of Misery stick around long enough, there is always the possibility that they will run out of serial killers to write songs about. While that would be good news for humanity, it would be a shame for metal, because the Tokyo band’s lyrical obsession is one of the great trademarks in metaldom, rivaling countrymen Corrupted’s insistence on singing every song in Spanish. It’s also one of two factors that distinguishes them from their many, many stoner/doom peers, the other being the fact that they kick unholy amounts of ass.
That second factor turns out to be pretty important in Houses of the Unholy, Church of Misery’s fourth platter of splatter. Behind all the sampled news bytes of their subjects’ heinous crimes, and shouts of “Blood sucking freeeeeeeak!!!,” Church of Misery fire off heavy, psychedelic rock ‘n roll as explosive as the shotgun blasts of James Oliver Huberty, the mass murderer who inspired “Shotgun Boogie.” The psychopath gimmick never really feels like a gimmick, thanks to the wooly jams that shit sparks all over the album.
The doomy boogies at the center of “El Padrino” and “Born to Raise Hell” are straight Sabbath veneration, all jackboot stomping and bluesy pentatonia. But where our beloved Birmingham boys built their kingdom on immortal riffs, Church of Misery excel at wringing blood from dangerous jams. Bassist Tatsu Mikami and drummer Junji Narita spiral from limber lumbering to hurtling freedom on “The Gray Man” (dedicated to the pedophilic cannibal Albert Fish); guitarist Thomas Sutton, the lone Caucasian in the group, sloshes electric soul around on the Sir Lord Baltimore cover “Master Heartache” and a glorious wah-wah solo on “Badlands.” If anybody in Church of Misery speaks direct from the heart of the serial killer, it’s vocalist/synth player Hideki Fukasawa. His throaty delivery has just the right amounts of insanity and passion for a killing spree.
Something still doesn’t sit quite right: a bell-bottomed psychedelic doom band should write songs about cosmic drug trips, not necrophilic vampires (“Blood Sucking Freak”). Consider the homages to vintage Blue Note sleeves that litter the liner notes (past album covers have referenced Pet Sounds and Vol. 4), witness the continued inclusion of one cover song by a classic doom band per album. In this context, maybe the serial killer thing is just another one of Church of Misery’s nigh-fetishistic traditions. Call them rituals, even – considering the churchly overtones of the band’s name and the title of the album, that ain’t much of a stretch. Not to say that Church of Misery are a religious band, far from it. Just that the band’s reverence for their influences, both of the sludgy and murdery kind, borders on the worshipful. Amen.
(four out of five horns)
-SR
