Reverend Bizarre

IN THE RECTORY OF THE BIZARRE REVEREND SINISTER FIGURE 2002

It had to be perfect. It had to. It didn’t matter the original label folded soon afterwards, nor that their frontman Sami ‘Albert Witchfinder’ Hynninen lost his sanity over it – or even that they were just an unknown band coming from Lohja, a small town 40km outside of Helsinki, made of one straight-edge drummer, one soon-to-be married guitar player and one maniac-depressive compulsive artist. From its roaring opener, Burn In Hell, down to the final cymbal sound of the massive, 21-minute-long

Cirith Ungol, or even its band picture inside featuring a perfect replica of the Paranoid gatefold illustration, this mother of all debuts didn’t just resurrect the whole classic doom movement, it sat on its throne, forever.