Slice of Doom 1999-2002

Some compilations can be very useful ways to get into a band or to help fans get hold of annoyingly elusive songs, while others simply exist as cash-ins or contractual obligations. In the case of Reverend Bizarre, the double-disc collection Death Is Glory…Now is among the very best of the first sort, gathering together many of the rare vinyl and split appearances that the Finnish doom overlords recorded during their worthy yet all-too-short career. As for Slice of Doom, this has two purposes, neither of which it performs with complete success. The first reason for its existence is to make available the songs from the band’s first proper demo (Practice Sessions doesn’t count, since Peter Vicar owns the only copy), which serious fans of the trio must have ached to get their hands on without much success. The second reason is much vaguer and seems to include the words “fleshing out” as an indication that not everything here is really necessary.

Starting with the demo, the three main songs constitute exciting (if exciting things can be very, very slow) journeys to the core of Reverend Bizarre’s philosophy, which in 1999 was just as quirky and indefinite as it seems in retrospect. The slight pick of the bunch is probably ‘Fucking Wizard’, mostly due to the rhythmic trickery and break from achingly steady to gleefully quick riffing that attends the middle part of the song. The band’s semi-titular anthem doesn’t quite manage to live up to its later version, while ‘Strange Horizon’ proves of consummate interest (being otherwise found only on the EP Harbinger of Metal in vastly extended form) though lower quality. However, on this compilation, the unnecessary decision was made to include all of the ephemera that attended various versions of the demo, including its original passable intro, another intro and outro made up of excerpts from the film The Brotherhood of Satan, plus two hidden bonus tracks, of which the cassette version of ‘Doomsower’ is much the better, yet here rather annoying (more on which in a moment). The film samples seem opposed to the philosophy of a song like ‘In the Rectory in the Bizarre Reverend’, because of their overt preoccupation with Satanism, something that I feel hurts the mood of the recording.

In any case, the rest of the material is a more confusing hodge-podge of odds and ends. We get another version of ‘Doomsower’ (told you) that also doesn’t alter much compared to the In the Rectory… standard, while ‘Doom Over the World’ appears in a similar capacity. Both were recorded for compilations and could probably have stayed there. The additional material that does make this worthwhile can be narrowed down to ‘Funeral Summer’, a cover of Saint Vitus’s ‘Dark World’, and an excerpt of one of the oldest rehearsals featuring original drummer Juippi and not Earl of Void. Of these, ‘Funeral Summer’ has the most striking performance on the disc, building a menacing atmosphere right from the outset, creaking along with a feeling like My Dying Bride sharing a stage with RevBiz during the early career of both bands; the extra melodic touches and aching vocals are top class, though the song would return on So Long Suckers after going through some adjustments. The other pair are both interesting, though more for curiosity than general performance quality – it’s particularly amusing to hear Albert Witchfinder do a Scott Reagers impression.

These days, you would probably be better off downloading parts of Slice of Doom than buying the whole disc, since any fan of Reverend Bizarre must surely have some of these songs in similar form. Nevertheless, it still creates a kind of complete package for newcomers, seeing as it gives a good overview of the band’s early career, which leads me to dub it “the RevBiz starter pack”.