There are some bands that you wonder if premonition had some part in their naming. Terminally ignored and then in 2006 losing two such talented and influential members as Slough Feg's John Scalzi and Jamie Myers, the Hammers took the blows, but are still here with us. Metal and determination going hand in hand again.
Never heard them? Hmmm. How to describe? Well, for a start remember that main man John Cobbett has graced such bands as Ludicra and Slough Feg. So expect serious musicianship. Actually, US unsung mavericks Slough Feg are a good base mix: Eccentric and a touch of the prog but most definitely Heavy Metal. Up the prog a couple of notches, the throw in some 80s Rush, a dash of same period Marillion, a hammond organ, the occasional paddling in True Doom, a Beatles sensibility for melody, a relentlessly intelligent lyrical approach and... you should get an utter mess. But finish it off with some metal magic and you get Hammers Of Misfortune.
Yeah, Marmite Metal.
Opening with 317, an instrumental intro that morphs into a song, it's kind of a typically off centre beginning. Guitar twinned with a Hammond sound and the kind of lead break that Rush decorated the 1980s with and, at the close the male and female harmony vocals adding to the prog feel.
The title track comes in on some scampering guitar before a very modern metal riff stars the Hammers engine and takes flight when the deceptively broad ranged vocals kick in. This is so typically Hammers Of Misfortune, and so glorious to hear their sound so bright and intact.
For me the album highlight comes really in ' The Grain'. This is a real melodic heart and gut-wrencher. A hard bass intro is gently built on by light guitar and keys and the soulful vocals have you before you can draw breath. Gentle despite the metal spine, it piles into you with an unexpected and devastating emotional punch and a chorus that will haunt you for months. Wisps of Marillion, particularly ' Freaks' surface and fall away between the harder riffs and frankly I am floored.
It's not an album that lets you escape either. Staring (The 31st Floor) brings the doom in a cloak of Hammers meet Candlemass to great effect. The curiously sprightly ' The Day The City Died', full of glorious guitars and excellent keys painting a cityscape, and the intense Romance Valley, the most urgent and hardest track here keep you well and truly trapped. Summer Tears is probably the song I can't recommend the least, due to a horrible melody refrain straight out of The Phantom of the Opera, but it is soon gone as the racing Grey Wednesday scrubs the memory away with a cool riff and some more soaring leads.
They leave us with the ten minutes of 'Going Somewhere', a piano intro that pushes into a bouncy but still very downbeat slower paced workout. Through dancing keyboard passages, dexterous as you could wish, to some downtuned riffing it leaves us suddenly.
17st Street is an exemplary album from these guys. It has a cohesion and a feel that suggests a central theme, a significant overall premise but without lyrics I can't be sure. What is certain is that it is thoughtful, emotional and chock full of the progressive themes they are rightly admired for. It might be metal-lite in sound compared to many reviewed here but it is most certainly not lite in content and its huge heart is still steeped in metal. Approach with an open mind and you will be rewarded.
Out on their own and pretty darned essential because of that.
http://www.myspace.com/hammersofmisfortune
http://www.hammersofmisfortune.com
Gizmo
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