Under The Church is the creation of Erik Qvick and Lars Hendrickson of Swedish band
Nirvana 2002. A slightly psychedelic sounding death-metal group that sprung up in 88 and only stopped touring in 2012.
Under The Church released their first demo just a year later in 2013 and their self-titled album in 2014.
The album is a grotesque feast of raw death-metal. Intense, chaotic instrumentation infused with brief breakdowns and solos in classic metal style. There is, refreshingly, nothing deep about the lyrics except fantastic imagery of un-dead feasts on human flesh and the thoughts of hateful, ghoulish creatures.
Listening to the lyrics and reading the tracklist,
Under The Church seems to me like a concept album involving a dark sorcerer bringing beings from beyond death and earth to terrorize humanity. The first track,
“Denial Of Death” features an eerie intro with the guitar squealing in a shrill banshee shriek that blends into a story of a spirit being ritually risen from the dead. The self-titled track “
Under The Church” sounds like it is being told through the hungry mind of a resurrected corpse as it travels through the countryside hunting for flesh.
“Back To The Grave” tells how the plan against humanity succeeded and the hell-spawn were banished back into the ground.
Of course, I could be reading way to far into what is simply a great death-metal album. The minds behind
Under The Church have been supplying the world with brutal metal tracks since the late 80’s and don’t seem to be anywhere close to stopping.