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METAL CHURCH
The Final Sermon - Live In Japan 2019
Rat Pak Records - 2024
http://www.metalchurchofficial.com

Recorded over a two-night stand at Club Citta in Kawasaki, Japan during the Damned If You Do tour in 2019, the new METAL CHURCH live release The Final Sermon - Live in Japan 2019 serves the dual purpose of providing not just a live document of the tour for the Damned If You Do album but also a live final goodbye to the band's late singer Mike Howe.

The first thing to note about the album is that while I would've hoped for a bit more in the way of information in the rather spare booklet of liner notes, I did like that the band mentioned that Howe's vocals are presented as they were sung during those two shows without any editing.

The show opens with a double shot of what was the new album at the time. You got the Damned If You Do title track and "Needle And Suture" songs. I thought this was a smart way to kick off the show. Having seen the band in concert myself in May 2019, I can also confirm that these were the same two songs they were playing as the openers during the US tour.

Of course, with a wealth of material to cover from the band's back catalog, after the two songs, METAL CHURCH begins working in that older material with a smoking rendition of "Fake Healer", one of the two big songs from the Blessing in Disguise album.

The ability to play a longer set in Japan than they did during the show I witnessed during this tour let the band break out songs I didn't get to see them perform. So I was pretty stoked to hear them play "In Mourning". Mike Howe's vocals really go for broke on this track as he changes up the delivery or perhaps I should say the emphasis on certain lines in the song. And while the song isn't about him specifically, the track does end up taking on an strange sense of foretelling and/or foreboding because the subject of the song is partly about suicide but also because of the last line that Howe sings in the song.

The one odd thing I noticed about the album is that with Howe's vocals being presented in an unedited fashion, he sounds different to me. I know there is a difference between a studio recording and a live performance. However, having seen him live during the tour, I don't recall his vocals sounding like this. It's not better or worse per se but it left me wondering if I heard something different because I was in the crowd as opposed to listening to an "objective" live recording. METAL CHURCH closed out a triple play of songs from The Human Factor with rousing run-throughs of the album's title track and "Date With Poverty".

The band sounds on fire throughout the recordings. It should be noted that bassist Bobby Ferkovich filled in for Steve Unger. He's in guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof's PRESTO BALLET band.

When the band launches into "The Black Things", there is a fierce snarling sensibility to Howe's vocals. This is a furious performance from METAL CHURCH. I like the song in its studio form well enough but it becomes something phenomenal during this particular performance.

After that ferocious track, METAL CHURCH heads back in time for the next four songs representing the albums Hanging In The Balance, The Dark and their self-titled debut. On "Gods of A Second Chance" (which seems to have added the "A" to the song title since on the original album it is "Gods of Second Chance"), I was really keyed into the track because I'd listened to the studio album just a few days before I wrote this review. There's that cool subtlety to the vocals in the opening part of the song and then the music kicks in with a more full-throated roar that also matches the way Howe escalates his delivery as well. I did notice that he wasn't quite note perfect on this song which sort of enhances the "live" aspect of the album. The song's inclusion in the set list (and thus the album) also has that kind of eerie aspect given some of the song lyrics and how they now reflect on Mike Howe's passing.

The Dark album was my original introduction to the band so I always love hearing songs from the release played live, which makes "Start The Fire" and "Watch The Children Pray" particularly pleasing to me. While I liked the way both songs came out here, I do wish I could see a video of the part of "Watch The Children Pray" when Howe invites the crowd to sing along. I'd like to know if they did or didn't do that because you can't really hear anything on this track for a crowd response to Howe's call. And when you follow that up with a scintillating version of "Beyond The Black", the 3-song homage to the David Wayne-era material is just set ablaze.

With the song "By The Numbers", I loved the way Howe performs the vocals on the studio cut with a low throaty growl in the main lyrical passages. It's pretty cool to hear how that plays out in a live setting once again. It was the closing song of the band's main set when I saw them and described it as both raging and enrapturing then. It maintains that kind of feeling throughout the performance on this album as well.

"No Friend of Mine", which is one my own personal favorite songs from METAL CHURCH is extended in concert with a lengthy guitar solo from Rick Van Zandt. While I've grown tired of solos for the most part, this was pretty decent to hear once again. The set comes to a close with the song that first introduced people to Mike Howe back in the day. I'm speaking of "Badlands" which retains a kind of mystical draw for me. Whenever I hear the song, I think back to seeing the video for the first time with the band out in the desert and those first guitar lines before the golden maned Howe began delivering a fierce vocal turn that quickly endeared him to not only myself, but METAL CHURCH fans everywhere.

Whitle the setlist for the show is 14 songs long, the band included two extra tracks listed as "bonus tracks". While they are listed on the back of the CD to look as if they are on the first disc, they actually are the first two tracks on the album's 2nd disc. I'm pretty sure they were the two live tracks that were included on the band's From The Vault compilation from a few years back. I looked at my copy of that album and they are the same songs. Plus the "Agent Green" performance sounds exactly the same. But I love the studio version of the song so much that any quibbles about including these tracks on another release are set aside. And when you add in "Anthem To The Estranged" and its striking performance, I almost wonder why I bothered to say anything about being previously released in the first place.

As for the remaining four tracks on the bonus disc: There's alternative mixes of "Killing Your Time" and "Dead On A Vine" which are fine. There's the original demo version of "Needle And Suture" and a demo version of the song "Never Grow Old" which was first released on the band's compilation The Best of Mike Howe.

While you might not necessarily need these various versions and re-dos, they do make for interesting documents about how the finished versions of the songs came to be.

In the final analysis, however rough and raw the album may sound, that is less important than the fact that METAL CHURCH put out The Final Sermon - Live in Japan 2019 as a documented final farewell to Mike Howe. The performances are fiery, rocking and completely adrenaline fueled. It may not be perfect in spots but for those of us who have seen METAL CHURCH in person, this is how you celebrate the band's legacy of great metal music!

4.5 Out Of 5.0