Houses of the Unholy

Church of Misery are a Japanese doom metal band formed in Tokyo in 1995. Their sound melds early Black Sabbath-style doom with psychedelic rock, and most of their songs are about serial killers and mass murderers; the seven here carry the names of Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo, James Oliver Huberty, Albert Fish, Richard Trenton Chase, Richard Speck and Charles Starkweather with Caril Fugate as subtitles. The band has been through many line-up changes, with the bassist Tatsu Mikami the only constant throughout. Southern Lord Records issued their first official full-length album, Master of Brutality, in 2001, and the Japanese label Diwphalanx released The Second Coming in 2004. The guitarist Tom Sutton joined in 2006. They played the Roadburn Festival in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012. This album came out on Rise Above Records in Britain and on Metal Blade Records in the United States. The running order here is the original's as printed.