Description
Taka Okuno, Burrn! Magazine, Japan,March 2013.
Since the late 60’s, many rock bands from the Far East have received underground recognition in Western Countries. For example early 70s cult bands such as Flower Travellin’ Band, Blues Creation, Speed Glue & Shinki are well known to rock listeners all over the world. Heavy metal bands such as Loudness, BowWow (also known as VowWow) achieved moderate success in UK/Europe and USA. Japanese hardcore punk bands such as Gism, Lip Cream, Outo and S.O.B. have been very influential to bands such as Napalm Death. Then there’s the Boredoms and Melt Banana…..
However, when it comes to the words like RIFFS, DOOM, HEAVINESS, INTENSITY, and DENSITY, Tokyo based Church Of Misery is undoubtedly the most KILLER band from Japan. And their brand new opus Thy Kingdom Scum proves this fact once again. Church Of Misery have been awed and respected by many colleagues in the doom/extreme metal scene such as Cathedral, Eyehategod, High On Fire, Orange Goblin etc for their long term strenuous efforts.
Right after the release of their previous album Houses Of The Unholy (2009),hardcore-background-shouter Hideki Fukasawa left the band and went missing literally! After several years of absence, Hideki is now back and joining him is new guitar player Ikuma Kawabe( Dhidalah), who replaces Tom Sutton.
Thy Kingdom Scumis is COM’s 4th full length record and is their most brutally heavy yet. The songwriting has matured and the individual performances more dynamic and intense. Dense and chunky riffs are mainly based on 70’s style hard rock/blues rock, which are combined with Hideki’s harcocre influenced growling the Kraut-rock-style-analog synthesizer. These elements add unique touches to their doom sound, making them totally different to any other bands currently in the scene. As usual. the bloodthirsty lyrics are all about the serial killers, which is another interest of the doom-riff-god Tatsu Mikami (bass guitar).
The mind-blowing sounds and sanguinary song themes mutually effected and this kind of mood is evidently doom. The cover song One Blind Mice was originally written by 70’s UK Hammond organ hard rock outfit Quatermass. The song was murdered by Church Of Misery and then was reborn as another evil ghoul. Their doom/psychedelic essences are dragged by 13-minute-epic Dusseldorf Monster (Peter Kurten). This kind of heavyweights are not often heard in current rock/metal genre in which lightweight scum are spreading here and there. Thy Kingdom Scum shows another criterion of doom/rock/metal,which should be.
- 1. B.T.K. (Dennis Rader)
- 2. Lambs to the Slaughter (Ian Brady/Myra Hindley)
- 3. Brother Bishop (Gary Heidnik)
- 4. Cranley Gardens (Dennis Andrew Nilsen)
- 5. One Blind Mice (Quatermass cover)
- 6. All Hallow’s Eve (John Linley Frazier)
- 7. Dusseldorf Monster (Peter Kurten)
