From Aural Innovations #35 (January 2007)
Wow! That is all I can say. I was expecting a heavy show but not what we received. It was great to see almost all of the Lowcut staff present at this really cool underground gig with Sourvein from the US and Church of Misery from Japan. I was fortunate to get to hang out for some hours before the gig with these really nice people. A small crowd of about 70 got blasted with two kinds of heavy doom rock. First up was Sourvein, who play a tuned down angry doom rock. NO guitar solos, just pure crushing riffs and monster bass lines. The bass player really carried the band in this case, laying down really awesome bass stuff. Hell, he plays in Bongzilla and Weedeater, so he knows his heavy stoned bass lines! Their set was 6 songs and 33 minutes but the crowd seem to dig them. I think the only person in the place that had ever seen Church of Misery besides the other bands, was Nils, who was the promoter. He had travelled to Berlin last year to catch one of the bands first gigs ever outside Japan! Church of Misery was awesome. Tom, the Australian guitarist (who speaks and understands Japanese), he learned well from the masters (Sabbath, St. Vitus, etc..) in the Doom riff kingdom. A lot of the Church of Misery songs are about serial killers and nasty people in general. The band played like 10 songs in 75 minutes including a very fast version of the St. Vitus track, War is our Destiny, to close the concert. Really long and heavy, a bit spacey at times, but always with a cool rock groove. What set them apart was that it was not just pure heavy laden doom but it had an early 70's rock groove thrown into the mix. While I could not understand almost anything the singer sung, he had an amazing stage presence and really gave it 200%! The whole band was awesome. A pity not more people showed up. A great night!
Church Set List: Candy Man, Discharge, Zodiac, Red Ripper, Ripping, Bundy, Boston, Evil, ?, War is our Destiny
Reviewed by Scott Heller