Church of Misery
Houses Of The Unholy

"Houses Of The Unholy" ('09), the fourth full-length by the four slant-eyed rednecks from Shijuku (Tokyo), evokes images of flies taking a bidet in coagulated blood, reckless and busty students in mini-skirts accidentally ending up in Hannibal Lecter's pantry, and indulgent worms stretching out under the Texan sun, lulled into a post-meal nap on a diet of human carcasses.

Six songs for six serial killers, where our bloodthirsty tamagotchis surgically extract the Sabbathian canon from gloomy Birmingham to drag it, with kicks and punches, to the desolate landscapes of rural and cannibal America. They intensify it in sound and volume, stripping it of all pagan and esoteric allure to dress it in a human leather suit.

Delving into the guts of the seventies heavy blues tradition, boasting the title of "Grandpa's favorite band stuffed from "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", they shred the frenzy of Sir Lord Baltimore (on this occasion honored with the cover of "Master Heartache"), the pre-punk urgency of late sixties Detroit, the acid fuzz exuberance of Blue Cheer ("Shotgun Boogie"), to cook their remains into a bubbling cauldron of slurred and anthemic stoner doom ("Badlands"). All of it with a sort of carefree brutality, as if in the grip of a hallucinatory and amused frenzy typical of a psychopath escaped from the asylum finding himself amidst a group of schoolgirls far from home.

No tarry density à la Sleep. No extrasensory digression à la Kyuss. Rather the immediacy of an awl breaking bones and tearing cartilage, of vocal cords tormented and tortured by a fierce and beastly growl, the call of love from some ancestor of the human race abandoned by Tom Tom when embarking on the road to evolution. And, truth be told, it feels like a mockery of certain vicious postures of the most extreme metal.

A violent and goofy album. The ideal soundtrack for camping holidays, evenings at home alone, and giving late-night lifts to unknown hitchhikers.