Church of Misery at Myspace

Japan’s Church of Misery have offered up another solid album of groovy stoner doom metal  with Houses of the Unholy. The first thing that I should mention is that while this is a fine album, it’s not innovative by any stretch of the imagination, with the songwriting based firmly in the 1970′s. However, the Church do a great job within those confines. The band’s lyrics are all about serial killers, much like the band Macabre, but the similarities end there, as there’s little of Macabre’s grim humor in these lyrics. I have to commend vocalist Yoshiaki Negishi; he chooses to downplay his Japanese accent (not that I have anything against them), and does it extremely well; I never once would have suspected this band was Japanese if I listened to this release blind. His delivery is raspy without straying far from the style of 70′s metal vocalists.

The songs are frequently lengthy (five of the album’s eight cuts are more than seven and a half minutes long), so the grooves have plenty of room to breathe. The musicianship is fine but really takes a back seat to the hypnotic chord sequences; doom metal is more about the songwriting and riffs than technical skills. Fans of 70′s metal and hard rock would do well to check this out.

Rosetta at Myspace

Rosetta’s particular strand of Post Metal takes the ethereal melodies present within Katatonia’s “Brave Murder Days” and The Angelic Process’s “Weighing souls with Sand” and merges them with the that staple of the Genre, the mid period Isis sound. The quiet/loud/quiet/loud dynamics are infused with a gradually increasing sense of urgency that many post metal bands try and fail to achieve. There is a sense of nearly but not quite linear progression in the song writing which adds a progressive and epic feel to the compositions.

“Wake/Lift” is a hauntingly beautiful yet exquisitely savage record and one that proves that Rosetta might be able to one day make the leap and join Isis, Pelican, Cult of Luna, and Neurosis as the accepted leaders of the genre. It is a measured and expertly crafted release which throws up new discoveries with each listen. If you like Post Metal you will probably like this!

Bongripper at Myspace

Bongripper is a stoner/doom/post-metal outfit from Chicago. All of the members are just in it for the love of music and don’t care about money; from what I read in another review of this album, one of them even leaked it onto the internet. The brand of sludgy psychedelia on Hippie Killer is excellent; it is almost entirely instrumental (with the exception of the track “Terrible Bear Attack”) I do have to admit that I didn’t enjoy the drumless, dronier tracks as much as the doomier ones, but the latter type tend to be much longer so it’s okay. I also thought the album went on a bit too long; at just under the maximum 80 minutes for a CD, it felt like the band was just trying too hard to fill out the entire thing. Also, I felt the vocals on “Terrible Bear Attack” were really annoying, and I was glad that track was just 3 minutes long.

Those are my only real quibbles with the album, though; it’s wonderfully atmospheric with crushing riffs, and I totally would’ve gotten high to this if my social skills were good enough to obtain weed. My personal favorite track was the 16-minute “Reefer Sutherland,” although most of the album was strong. Fans of this style of metal will love Hippie Killer.

Made in Japan is the third release from the Flower Travellin’ Band, and it’s just not as interesting as their first two efforts. Anywhere had some awesome cover songs, and Satori was wonderfully psychedelic, but the songwriting on here isn’t up to par with their previous release. There just isn’t anything on this release that seems especially groundbreaking for 1972. The songs are relatively short, so they don’t have the impressive lengthy grooves of those on Satori. The few highlights include the Pink Floyd-esque opening to “Hiroshima” and the wonderfully happy “Heaven and Hell.” This one’s only for completists.

The Flower Travellin’ Band released one more album called Make Up before they disbanded, but I couldn’t track down a copy, so I won’t be reviewing it.

Satori is the Flower Travellin’ Band’s most famous effort. The tracks are all named “Satori” parts I through V, but they really don’t sound that similar at all. Part I starts off with a tone reminiscent of the Emergency Broadcast System, and then vocalist Akira Yamanaka lets loose with a piercing scream. It’s amazing how heavy this stuff is for 1971. Part II is my favorite track on the album. The guitar melody is simply hypnotic and Eastern-sounding, the drums have a good mix of trippy cymbals and bass drum pounding, and there’s some great tambourine in the mix. Part III is an instrumental that takes a little while to get started, with some semi-ambient noise for the first 90 seconds, but it’s awesome once it does. The guitar work on this track is awesome; it’s fairly slow, but never plodding, but gets fast right towards the end. The fourth part is a little repetitive for the first third of its eleven minutes, but settles into an awesome, laid-back bluesy section with a harmonica that lasts until the final two minutes, when the song reverts to the first part again. The final track, Part V, has some awesome chanting from Yamanaka and some nice keyboard work, as well.

This is a great album, and I recommend it to anyone who loves Black Sabbath or other early metal bands.