Surely Kurdt Vanderhoof is one of the very few songwriters in heavy metal who writes material specifically to suit the voices of the singers he works with rather than the other way around. What other explanation is there for ‘Congregation of Annihilation’, the first Metal Church album with new singer Marc Lopes, being the most vicious album they released in a long time, possibly ever? Metal Church’s sound was always a slightly more aggressive take on traditional heavy metal, sometimes bordering on thrash metal. ‘Congregation of Annihilation’ sees them crossing that border several times. Easily their best album in a long time.

Let’s start with the obvious: Lopes is a breath of fresh air. I love Mike Howe and was devastated by his tragic death, but Lopes really breathed new life into the band. He blends David Wayne’s insane tone – particularly his Reverend days – and Ronny Munroe’s diction with hints of Onslaught’s Sy Keeler in his lower register. While I can’t quite picture him singing more subtle songs like ‘Gods of Wrath’ yet – he might, it’s just not how he is employed here – his voice is simply perfect for the material on the album. It’s hard to imagine any of this material being written before his arrival.

Another massive advantage ‘Congregation of Annihilation’ has over nearly every other post-reunion Metal Church album is that it isn’t longer than it should be. Many of their albums released during this century were fairly frontloaded, starting out with the best material and more or less petering out after that. The result is that even some of the shorter albums sounded much longer than they were. One of the ways in which ‘Congregation of Annihilation’ fixes this is by not trying to throw everything Metal Church can do at the listener and just focussing on what this line-up does best: tight, aggressive metal songs with strong riffs and an at times delightfully crazy vocal performance.

The best songs are not clustered on the first half of the album. The rhythmically interesting and highly dynamic ‘Making Monsters’, which has a slightly more modern feel and particularly violent chord work in its chorus, is one of the highlights here. ‘Say a Prayer with 7 Bullets’ combines an early hard rock vibe with an aggressive metal bite, while the dramatic mid-tempo stomper ‘Me the Nothing’ is the closest the album has to a semi-ballad. Most of what remains consists of relatively simple, but brutally effective thrash-light songs, such as the excellent opener ‘Another Judgement Day’, the stomping title track and the powerful ‘All That We Destroy’.

So is ‘Congregation of Annihilation’ better than ‘Blessing in Disguise’? Of course it isn’t, don’t be ridiculous. But it might actually be the best Metal Church album released during the second run of their career. It feels like Vanderhoof has been playing it safe far less than on any of the albums released since reuiniting and just set to write the best possible album for a Lopes-fronted Metal Church. What came out is exciting and notably more aggressive than what was the norm even when David Wayne was fronting the band. And yet, it sounds like nobody else than Metal Church.

Recommended tracks: ‘Making Monsters’, ‘Another Judgement Day’, ‘Say a Prayer with 7 Bullets’