“At 2.19am my brother began to stir in his coffin…”

And so begins Megachurch’s second offering Megachurch 2: Judgment Day. The album cover features a bloke in a suit wielding a golden sword whilst straddling a fluorescent green dragon. A pink and blue volcano blows its stack in the background. Subtle it isn’t. Fun it is.

It is clear Megachurch don’t take themselves – or anything else – too seriously. Their MySpace page calls them a Christian Rap group. Their Bandcamp page is slightly more helpful explaining: Megachurch are a heavy rock band from Ohio who employ two bass players and eschew vocals in favor of televangelist samples.

Any band that uses the word ‘eschew’ and ‘televangelist’ must be worth a listen.

The noise Megachurch makes is a godless, balls-to-the-wall racket that grabs you by the ears and refuses to let go. Coming on as a low brow Lightning Bolt, Megachurch 2 is the type of album you put on to blow away a cruddy day. Sure it’s not much of a progression from their eponymous first album. But that doesn’t matter when what they do is so blindingly good.

No song is longer than 5 minutes and most clock in at less than 3 ½. Opener Resurrection sets the scene with a preacher recounting the story of people rising from the dead. The oppressiveness continues with Teabaggers, which chugs along with a don’t-give-a-shit riff that is good for the soul.

Televangelists are disturbing at the best of times. But when their rants are sampled and combined with powerhouse drumming and throbbing bass it’s just plain scary. At one point, echoes of Alien Ant Farm’s Smooth Criminal appear to seep through, but are quickly drowned out with propulsive drumming.

The fact the band only features bass and drums is astonishing. One of the strongest tracks, Speaking in Tongues, builds into a cacophonous wall-of-sound, finishing abruptly with a man asking, “what does it all mean?” Simply, it means everything and nothing. Megachurch 2 is a noisy, thunderous miracle.