UNDER THE CHURCH are an international Death Metal band from Edsbyn (Sweden) and Reykjavik (Iceland) who are currently signed to Pulverised Records and have released 1 EP and 2 LPs through the said label. Today I'll be giving you my thoughts on their most recent effort titled, "Supernatural Punishment". It a pretty interesting title, I might add, and the album's cover art and song titles are also great. Why am I mentioning this instead of talking about the actual music? Because they're the best things about this album, and that says a lot.

I am honestly having a really hard time doing an actual 300-plus word review about this....thing, but I'll try to squeeze out the reasons as to why I didn't like "Supernatural Punishment".

First off and most importantly, the album overall lacks anything that would make it original, or particularly interesting. Almost all songs are the most basic-ass tremolo riffs, with basic-ass drumming (I mean fuck, did they even have a drummer for this record or did they just add some sampled drum beats to it?) and the basic-ass growling vocals. There's nothing to actually enjoy here save for two tracks - "Vitalizing Fear" and "Wretched Disfigurement"- which aren't much better from a songwriting perspective, but at least they have that absurd kind of fun factor that many OSDM bands have.

Guitarist Erik Qvick does comes up with some nice riffs and solos, (particularly the title track's first 30 seconds, that have some pretty cool and wild guitar stuff) but only so much as to distinguish the songs from each other; which is hard as it is but would be borderline impossible if the guitar work on this LP wouldn't have be like a 6 or 7 out of ten.

So, to give "Supernatural Punishment" its 'supernatural punishment', I'll say this: do some actual drumming, keep the same quality riffs, solos and production style, try some new elements, go out there and explore other shit that can help shape your own sound. Of course, I'm no musician, but guys, I'm sure you're more talented than and have plenty more potential, but this record just...sucks.