COM LPs

Master of Brutality (2001)

Pricey deletion of U.S. bow on Southern Lord dishes old-school Black Sabbath/Iron Butterfly/Melvins. Yoshiaki Negishi sandblasts Lemmy's epiglottal nub as Tomohiro Nishimura shreds the apocalypse on opener "Killfornia (Ed Kemper)," Tatsu Mikami's petrified bass pulling the crypt closed. The bubbling atmospherics on "Green River" receive a rare writing credit beside Mikami's other than trademark covers – here, Blue Öyster Cult's "Cities on Flame." Eleven minutes of the closing title track rots in John Wayne Gacy's crawl space. Cover pox by Frank Kozik.

Early Works Compilation (2004)

Down-tuned and readily available 2-CD casket of covers (St. Vitus), tributes (Black Widow), and split-CD and -EP tracks from 1997 to 2000, featuring COM's tamest oracle, Nobukazu Chow. UT Tower tragedy "Road to Ruin (Charles Whitman)" gets an elegy from early axe Tomohiro Nishimura; otherwise Dan Rather introduces "Room 213 (Jeffrey Dahmer)," "Son of a Gun (David Berkowitz)" digs out a nine-minute .44 slug, and "Where Evil Dwells (Richard Ramirez)" gathers black metal gloom. "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" transcends its demo-quality delivery, but the band enslaves Death SS' "Chains of Death." Stomach a photo of Sharon Tate butchered?

The Second Coming (2004)

Julian Cope's Japrocksampler begs revision solely to anoint Church of Misery's Second Coming. As "Whole Lotta Love" fires Led Zeppelin II, "I, Motherfucker (Ted Bundy)" here births a perfect quartet: new shape-shifters Hideki Fukasawa (Warg) and Takenori Hoshi (Jeff Beck), plus bassist Tatsu Mikami (doom) and drummer Junjy Narita (funk). Second batter "Soul Discharge (Mark Essex)" uncorks leviathan blues – titanic turnarounds – followed by the holocaust exhaust of "Red Ripper Blues (Andrei Chikatilo)." Ramming regions best not referenced, "Filth Bitch Boogie (Aileen Wuornos)" rolls eyeballs white. Convulsive rug-cutter.

Houses of the Unholy (2009)

Atomic Motörhead. Succeeding Takenori Hoshi in 2006, Australian Tokyo émigré Thomas Sutton launches "Blood Sucking Freak" deep space nine, his solo mutating Jimmy Page and David Gilmour into one ravenous guitar hybrid. Satan's overdub (Sutton's aka) atop "The Gray Man" blanches bones. Hideki Fukasawa's mongrel holler on would-be COM cover "Born To Raise Hell" warrants its own Quentin Tarantino movie moment. Numbing: fifth gear on "Master Heartache."

Live at Roadburn 2009 (2010)

Import-only hourlong captivity from metal's Dutch rite of passage excises parenthetical butchers credits beginning with Houses of the Unholy mushroom cloud "El Padrino." A sludgy "I, Motherfucker" sets up cobweb-clearer "Shotgun Boogie" into a uranium-heavy "Red Ripper Blues" from The Second Coming. Full density then solidifies into early whack "Taste the Pain" (Graham Young). "For Madman Only," from a gem 2006 single split with North Carolina's Sourvien, guns Tom Sutton's swan song and the return of Master of Brutality headsman Yoshiaki Negishi.