As has probably become clear to those who have read any of my stuff in the years gone by, I’m a bit of a sucker for a schlocky B-movie horror trope. So when I received a press release about a single from this band Hammer, called ‘Trapped In A House With A Maniac’, I took the extremely rare step of listening to it. I thought it was cool. Maybe not as schlocky or immediately fun as I’d have hoped for, but it was clear that the band could fucking play. There was a structural shifting sands kind of feel to it. It wasn’t Between The Buried and Me, or Callous Daoboys, but it seemed to reach into the corners of the furrow it was actively ploughing in a way that made me want to hear more of the band’s output. So here we are.

The record itself is the band’s second, but first with the vocalist you hear on this record. The debut came out smack bang at the point of global lockdown and the band have had a bit of a reset since then. I’m not going to say I’ve listenedd to the debut and I don’t think it’s necessary for me to have had to, frankly. Not because I don’t think it would be an interesting comparison point, but because this record feels like a standalone piece, and because of the lineup changes (they extend beyond the addition of a new vocalist I should make clear), then this might as well be a debut. That brings with it pros and cons. The pros first, I think. There is a legitimately visceral energy and surging anger to this record. It’s that sort of fury and kinetic isn that you find exists in debuts more than anywhere else and that’s fucking great. It means that at no point does one feel like you’re coasting or meandering. You’re being hurled over a waterfall in a tin bucket wearing a rusty chain mail suit or armour. And that’s really cool. The riffing is relentless, front and centre, and swings wildly Mastodon, to URNE, to Machinehead, with occasional forays into At The Gates and Killswitch. All of these are good things. Vocalist James, who joined the band in ‘23 does superb job of matching vocal styles to the musical canvas that shifts under him as well, it must be said. The rhythm section, if push came to shove, I would say is slightly more workmanlike, but never anything less than very good at their job.

And this, to a certain extent, brings me to the cons, or negatives. And they’re not numerous, to be clear. My reservations around this record are simply that its sound is really quite linear. The guitar tone, the pacing, the individual song style is really quite one-note. The band are very good at writing and playing this thing they do, but I don’t know that I need a whole record of it. I complimented them on the energy and vigour on display earlier, and that remains true. But after listening to this a few times, I feel like I know the band’s sound a whole lot better than I know any of their songs. And that comes down to songcraft, ultimately. The riffs are super satisfying, but (and I can scarcely believe I’m going to say this as a card-carrying riff devotee) a great album is more than jus riffs. If you listen to this and then listen to the new Malevolence record, or the new Employed to Serve, you’ll see the difference that songcraft makes. It’s immense.

I don’t want to shit on this at all, because the guys can clearly play, this is their first record in this guise and they have energy and intensity that I love. But they need to work on the songs themselves. Even when they go for the (slightly cliched) long song to end the album (c.7 minutes) it does basically the same thing as most of the other songs, but a little longer and a little slower. But in the end, this is decent. I feel bad for ragging on it a little. I’ll tell you what, how’s this; it’s better than the new Machinehead record, that’s for damn sure. And if I were a young metal band, I’d take that.