Church Of Misery

Early Works Compilation (Leaf Hound)
by Craig Regala

Double disc of end-of-the-century stuff from classic steelshod doom/bad acid four-piece. These guys work from the point when metal was being formed from heavy blues and vicious acid rock. Black Sabbath, Wicked Lady, Pentagram, the slow groove of Iron Butterfly, and Vanilla Fudge, the sustained stoned immaculate fuzz of Randy Holden/Blue Cheer: All essential nutrients and building blocks for Church Of Misery‘s DNA. Their personal stamp comes from a gritty grinding surface, well-articulated (i.e. I didn’t get bored) improv/jam sections, rich car-wreck ’70s tone, and a thematic focus on serial killers from the U.S. (these guys are Japanese).

The two discs are a buncha material recorded from 1997 to 2000, including their split with Sheavy, the Taste the Pain and Murder Company releases, a Trouble cover, and some other this’n’that. If you’ve liked anything else by these guys, get this cuz you probably won’t find the original releases, this is remastered, and it has a cool Manson reference on the cover. If you wanna drop a few bucks on’m, get the new one, The Second Coming.
(www.leafhound.com)