It's tough not to go completely fanboy and not bug out over the gloomy blackened doomcrust all-girl trio Gallhammer; it's like discovering some weird Kim Fowley-constructed girl band from an alternate black metal universe, and fans of Frost/Hellhammer worship have been flipping over 'em since they were picked up by Peaceville. Why not? You've got three foxy young Japanese ladies geared up in Celtic Frost and Amebix t-shirts, spiked wristbands and bullet belts with black makeup smeared across their eyes belting out this awesome dingy assault of sloppy primitive black metal, grim crustcore and doomy plod with a melodic undercurrent that betrays Gallhammer's love of dark 80's post-punk. The Gallhammer discs on Peaceville releases are big faves around here, and I can't get enough of em! Who knows when I'll ever get a chance to see them though, as Gallhammer have yet to come over to the U.S. to tour. Luckily, there's plenty of live Gallhammer video to hold me over in the meantime, and this recently released DVD from Peaceville is a killer set that that fans of the band will definitely dig. Ruin Of A Church captures a live performance that was professionally filmed in the UK in September of 2007, and just like the title says, it took place in a former church that had been reopened as some sort of cultural arts center. The girls are set up where an altar once stood, performing underneath a set of stained glass windows, and it's a perfect visual setting for their sound as they pound out nine songs of crushing, dirgey black metal. Stumbling blastbeats and primitive black metal riffs meet up with those occasional Joy Division-esque hooks that sometimes show up underneath their lumbering midpaced dirge, with all three of the girls spitting out their moaning blackened shrieks (kinda - the drummer's singing is more of a hyperactive cheerleader squeak). The whole band seems to lock into a narcotized trance as they lurch and sway across the stage, enraptured by the filthy pummeling riffage. The footage and audio for the UK show is top notch, with multiple cameras and loud, punchy sound quality, and the set includes a bunch of songs from their latest album, Ill Innocence. There's some other cool stuff that is included here too, a handful of music videos for the songs "Hallucination" and "World To Be Ashes", two other live concerts that were recorded in Oslo and London from the same tour, and an interview with the members of Gallhammer. Killer!