### Church Of Misery: Early works compilation

#### 27/04/10 || Khlysty

Since I’m in an early Black Sabbath killing spree, I think that it’s a good decision to tell you about one of the most prominent members of their progeny, the Tokyo-based, serial-killer-addicted, Church Of Misery, whose latest record, “Houses of the Unholy” was covered almost a year back for GD by GardensTale. For those of you not in the know, CoM plays doom metal in the great tradition of “Master Of Reality”-era Black Sabbath. This means wall-of-sound guitars, riffs that make the universe groan under their heavosity, slow, turgid, but, at the same time, super-groove rhythmic work and vocals that approach the Ozzer’s monotonous almost-unmusical, but always perfect for the music, wail.

Modestly titled “Early Works Compilation” is a two-disk, more than two-hours long extravaganza, which finds our boys collecting some hard-to-find songs from E.P.s, singles, splits, other compos and whatnot, plus some unreleased studio material from their 1998-2000 period. The band opens each serial-killer-themed song with sound clips from news, films and other media, related to the killer and the deeds he perpetrated before being captured and/or killed hisself. So, for opener, we get a chilling news report for Charlie Manson and his and his cohorts killing of Sharon Tate, before the roar of the guitars enters and destroys the fabric of space and time with its almost-cosmic heaviness.

As far as the CoM original tunes are concerned, things are pretty simple and straightforward: we gets our classic Black Sabbath riffing, overdriven and a bit updated, so as not to seem like a complete rip-off of the original and we gets our stoned-out, super-saturated doom and gloom groove that characterizes this kind of music. Look, if you know early Sabs work and you like it, then CoM’s tunes will have you happier ‘n a pig in shit. Me, I LOVE early Sabs, so you can easily understand that when listening to these bastids I’m in pig heaven. I also have to point out that the bloated songs lengths never seem to provoke boredom, or to fall into a rut of redundancy, as the band cleverly utilizes the known raw material to invoke desperation and gloom which seems totally out of time.

But, the most interesting aspect of this compilation lies at the five covers the band includes here. I won’t comment of St. Vitus’ “War Is Our Destiny” or Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” –you either know them, or you don’t…-, except to say that CoM infuses two classics with its own character and attitude, showing the proper respect, while making them its own. Trouble’s “Come Touch The Sky” is also a classic tune done the CoM way –and a good one, too-, while I didn’t know shit-all about Black Widow or Death SS, although the songs covered by our boys here are turned into literal groove-monsters of doom and distortion. Anyway, the covers are really cool, but, more importantly, display in full Technicolor glory the diverse influences of the band and, probably, make the listener look for the roots of the music.

The production is of differing quality, sometimes clear and lively, sometimes more murky and claustrophobic, as the material comes from different sources and times. The band is extremely tight and knows its shit inside and out. Look, I won’t tire you anymore: the bottom line here is that this is classic-sounding doom metal, slightly updated, groovy, extra-heavy and fun to listen to. If you know what’s good for you, you’d consume it without even a hint of reluctance. It’s what the doctor prescribed.

- Information
- Released: 2004
- Label: Leaf Hound Records
- Website: www.churchofmisery.net
- Band
- Nobukazu Chow: vocals
- Tomohiro Nishimura: guitars
- Tatsu Mikami: bass
- Hideki Shimizu: drums

- Tracklist
- Disc One
- 01. Spahn Ranch (Charles Manson)
- 02. Road to ruin (Charles Whitman)
- 03. Reverend (Jim Jones)
- 04. War is our destiny (St. Vitus cover)
- 05. Room 213 (Jeffrey Dahmer)
- 06. Taste the pain (Graham Young)
- 07. Plainfield (Ed Gein)
- 08. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (Iron Butterfly cover)
- Disc Two
- 01. Murder company (Henry Lee Lucas)
- 02. Son of a gun (David Berkowitz)
- 03. Where evil dwells (Richard Ramirez)
- 04. Sick of living (The Zodiac)
- 05. Come touch the sky (Trouble cover)
- 06. Accident (Black Widow cover)
- 07. Chains of death (Death SS cover)
- 08. Retal (Howard Unruh)