Everything ends. For everybody concerned with US metal stalwarts Metal Church this fact became painfully apparent when they lost their iconic vocalist Mike Howe in 2021, shortly before his fifty sixth birthday.

Howe was a fine vocalist, a vocalist with that rare ability to mix grit with melody, and a perfect fit for the progressive thrash of Metal Church. Even as he moved deep into middle age his vocal star never dimmed, a fact underlined when you listen to new live album The Final Sermon, a release timed to coincide with the third anniversary of Howe’s untimely demise.

Recorded over two nights in 2019 at Club Citta in Kawasaki, Japan – Howe’s final two shows with the band – The Final Sermon captures the band in solid form, nothing more, nothing less. Crowd noise is gratifyingly muted, allowing you to concentrate on the performances, and the best performance of all across the album comes from Howe, who gives a masterclass in heavy metal singing on tracks from right across the band’s extensive back catalogue. His phrasing is perfect, his control of power and range never less than totally on-point; Of course, having a set with songs of the calibre of Watch The Children Play, Beyond The Black, Date With Poverty, Human Factor and Needle & Suture makes any singer’s job a whole lot easier, but the fact remains that the songs have to be sung and Howe does so in near-faultless fashion.

Opener Damned If You Do finds the band hitting the ground running and, quite frankly, this high quality approach to live performance doesn’t stop for the next eighty minutes. Of course, fans will query the setlist – this reviewer would have far more selections from the band’s debut album, and The Human Factor, for instance – but the fact remains that The Final Sermon will come to be seen as a fitting epitaph to one of American heavy metal’s best-loved and most respected vocalists.

The Final Sermon releases on July 26th.