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Mortification > Hammer of God > Reviews
Mortification - Hammer of God

Decent Christian Thrash - 72%

lostalbumguru, October 8th, 2023
Written based on this version: 1999, CD, Nuclear Blast

Mortification released 2 albums in and around frontman Steve Rowe's cancer battle. This 2nd album, Hammer Of God, is quite good and a fair bit better than the album preceding it, Triumph Of Mercy. The lyrics are all Christian-based, some clunky, some pretty sharp. The riffs are all either pretty good or very catchy, the drumming is minimalist but quite tight, and the bass and vocals are also pretty good.

You'd have to know what you're getting into with this sort of album, as you're not going to get really brutal blackened thrash with nasty buzzsaw production values, but instead Hammer Of God will give you classic metal mixed with thrash and some nu-metal leanings. The lead guitar work is very cool- just enough melody and shred to point to the 80s, but without overdoing it. Hammer Of God, Liberal Mediocrity, Martyrs, and In The Woods are the better tracks on here, and you get a bunch of bonus tracks (re-dos etc) at the end, so overall a lot of music on one disc, and only a few moments here and there are a bit cringe.

If you have a space on your shelf for some Christian metal, Hammer Of God isn't half as bad as some say. Mortification's early albums are much heavier, and Scrolls Of the Megilloth is probably a must own for any fan of really heavy metal. From the mid 90s onwards it's hit and miss, but this album is pretty consistent, quite enjoyable, well executed, and while not crushingly heavy, is the kind of album where you can tell they actually put time into making it cohesive from music, to lyrics, to artwork, and it shows, overall.

If you mixed this album with the previous Mortification album, Triumph Of Mercy, and extracted the less good bits, you'd have 1 really worthy 7.5/10 album. It's a bit like Load/Re-Load in that respect. So, not bad, worth a bargain bucket spend, but not great either.

Just pathetic. - 0%

droneriot, September 5th, 2019

The realm of "metal" bands in the service of Christianity is vast and diverse. It encompasses musicians who personally follow the Christian faith, who sometimes decide to more or less tastefully let their faith shine through when it fits the context of the song, there are bands who treat the topic of Christianity from more of a third person perspective, more passive than preaching, there are bands whose main lyrical subject is philosophy, and they view Christianity as part of such and actually try to make sense about how they explore the topic lyrically. Of course there is a more than noticable share - maybe majority - of nuts, the usual preaching here and there, and of course obvious gimmick bands such as Horde. And then there is Mortification. Were one to make a list of the world's most laughable Christians most clueless in their blind sheep-mentality, Steve Rowe would probably come close to rivaling famed creationist Kent Hovind for the first place. The lyrics on this album are just horrifying beyond description, because they basically even make Skrewdriver seem like the normal, moderate, average guys next door in comparison. This is the kind of stuff that sums up all the disdain for Chrisianity that is so wide-spread in the metal scene, all the reasons there is so much distrust and distaste for Christianity in the metal scene, all the stereotypes that invite all the excessive and well-deserved hatred, this is what Mortification come up with, and try to force it into a metal context. This is the major failing of Mortification, because they try to combine two things that aren't compatible, extreme metal and extreme Bible Belt-style Christian moronism. I'm not sure I can even stomach to give you any examples here, but the lyrics are available here at Metal Archives, though I can already tell you that you do not want to read them, because they are just too fucked up, showing some serious brain damage in Steve Rowe's head. Take all the preconceptions you had of the most retarded factions of extreme Christianity, and multiply them by ten, and that's what you will get. But Mortification manage to be pathetic in many ways...

During most of his career, Steve Rowe has worked on his reputation by whining about his sickness in every possible review he could find anywhere. "Boo hoo, I have cancer, please pity me and pay attention to me!"... Yes, Stevie crybaby, I'm paying attention to you now, so lets talk about these things you say in interviews, shall we? Probably an atheist doctor saved your sorry ass, and you give the credit to what deserves it least, the Lord, object of reverence in a religion so distasteful that it possibly causes such stress to the subconscious (I'm one of the optimists who believe that there is an actual human being buried deep within the psyche of each Christian, suffering) that it was probably the cause of the cancer in the first place. How about getting a grip on reality, and realizing that you simply got screwed for physical and very secular reasons, survived for physical and very secular reasons, and were healed by physical and very secular means? And even if God existed and wanted to save someone's life, it certainly wouldn't be that of a poor and completely inept songwriter, dabbling in a form of music based on defying and spitting on the things you praise so much.

Of course there is supposed to be music on here, too, and some music it is... it definitely succeeded in earning a big part of the zero percent rating. Basically what we have here is ovulating half-Thrash for the fainter hearted, all very shy and easily digestable. The music is built up on drumming that sounds as if the drummer barely dares to hit his drumkit, played extra softly because hard drumming might be an invocation of Satan or something like that. Of course it is moving at a very slow pace too, because we all know that evil comes with fast drumming. The riffing is about as original as Britney Spears in her worst of times... I think it is supposed to have a lot of groove, but it's really just boring. Just take the title track "Hammer of God" as an example, even Six Feet Under would be too embarrassed to put such an uninspired and absolutely soulless (quite the irony for a Christian band) sad excuse for a "groove" song on any of their album, even just as filler or a bonus track on a Japanese version. Hell, I've heard better Machine Head songs! To add a little flavour and contrast, there are of course a few glam rock/AOR-ish parts lifted from various more popular Guns 'n' Roses and ZZ Top albums, but the thing that really gets me going are the uplifting bits. Damn, are those just awesome or what? Basically they sound like parts thrown out of Elton John's ode to Lady Diana, "Candle in the Wind", and help the poor starving childing stuff such as "We are the World", thrown out simply because they were much to cheesy even for such schmaltz-laden abominations. The song "A Pearl" has a particular gem that if it doesn't make you cringe, you are probably a devout and fanatic Christian, because no one in the right mind could take this seriously, or do feel anything else about it but either the urge to literally roll on the floor laughing or crying for mercy. Great work there, guys... really! Anyway, it gets even worse, because on top of it all is Steve Rowe's vocal performance. It's just hilariously bad. His vocals have a slight growling edge that really seems like a bad case of constipation, but mostly he is half-singing, with somewhat less than the melodic talent of Slayer's Tom Araya ("Spill the Blood", someone?), just at a more mid-ranged pitch, and absolutely none of the aggression, at all, nowhere, nada, he sounds more like he is rather bored and asking himself if he really has to do vocals here and hopes to be done as soon as possible so he can do something more interesting, like playing Bingo with old people at the retirement home, or teaching young kids about Jesus in the orphanage.

Before I get to the conclusion, I think I will have to make a specific mention of the shortest song on this album, a particularly amusing little one-quarter-thrash bit named "God Rulz". Yes, it is seriously written that way, I'm not making that up... and the same thing is the entire content of the lyrics, repeated over and over again. A career dating far back into the eighties, tours over most of the planet, a battle with near-terminal cancer, and still, that is how mature Steve Rowe is after it all. Seriously, I think i've heard black metal bands in three layers of face paint, covered with ten inch spikes, and gasmasks and bullet belts all over it writing better lyrics, at least i haven't seen "Satan rulz!" anywhere yet -there's an idea, though. And while I'm at it, did I mention that the cover artwork consists of a Star of David formed with swords? What even goes through the mind of someone coming up with something like that for a death metal album cover. If you want a Star of David to be badass join the IDF, it doesn't work that well with heavily sedated half-thrash songs about the Lord being so bored with so little to do that he'd cure your cancer.

In conclusion, yes, this seriously is pathetic. I don't know what else to say other than what I have said already. This album sums up the dumbest and most useless of what Christian metal can be, marking the absolute bottom of a self-proclaimed "genre" that isn't really much more than a cheap chuckle anyway. We have established the fact that Steve Rowe is a moron, and we have established the fact that the so-called "music" on this album has less merits than Helen Keller has working senses, so, what can I say? Don't buy this or any other Mortification release. If you see them live, throw things at them. Don't download their music because it isn't even funny anymore. This is the kind of music that makes Finntroll sound like good music in comparison. Hell, this is the kind of music that makes Christina Aguilera sound like good music in comparison. That's about as much of a conclusion I can come up with, because this really isn't worth much more than a toilet with a broken flush... maybe piss in it once when you are too drunk to realize it's broken, then never use it again.

Metal crusade? - 62%

Kalelfromkrypton, January 14th, 2010

In the world of metal there are certainty preconceptions about the music and even more about the lyrical content. There has been, however, some opening to Christian lyrical content, being there that is doesn’t sound preachy but presenting it in an intelligent thought-provoking way. Those who throw away an album because of the lyrical content are obviously mind-numbed. There are bad albums and of course utterly bad music in every genre, every band and everywhere. Mortification ‘Hammer of God’ while definitely not their best it has some cool moments worth mentioning.

There are those times when keyboards soften the music, thus, it departs from metal to become accessible music, mainstream commercial shit, or any other aberration (ask ‘Europe’ once Final Countdown was released if you don’t believe me). I have nothing against keyboards, when used properly they can enhance the atmosphere in the music but in thrash or speed metal they are for me nothing but crap.

Another aspect is the voice and that Steve does not growl here. For me, that is another step down since his regular voice is really uninspiring. Of course this is straight heavy metal with some speed metal glimpses here and there, but even so, his voice does not fit it well. One thing for sure is that he is instantly recognizable which grants him som points. By the way, it gets totally diminished because of the sound mixing which brings forth the guitars above all.

The inclusion of Lincoln Bowen as guitar player infused the band with some freshness, especially in the guitar soloing department, which was almost nonexistent with Michael C. In this sense, this makes it more straight heavy metal than any other thing. The solos are not that technical but are enjoyable and give the band a different sound from what we have been accustomed to.

When ‘Metal Crusade’ opens and immediately the keyboards make their presence something is for me wrong, being that this is a Mortification album. Certainly they have been stepping down in heaviness long ago and as far as that hitting the drums harder might be related to Satan, the other guy does not make any sense at all, thus it will be a flaw review but anyhow, this one is to be fair to the album itself and not just a ventilation of the frustration with Christianity that could be left for forums or follow Deicide if that bothers that much. The riffing is very soft and the guitar distortion is as flat as it can be. Everything is done to sound more Megadeth in their more commercial days. The drums are flat as well, because Keith Banister was a totally bad decision as a drummer. He has no texture, no interesting rhythm parts, no tempo changes, nothing, just flat follow up the music.

There are mid tempo songs such as ‘Martyrs’ and ‘In the Woods’ which are cool for me since the riffing is strong, but diminished due to the guitar distortion. ‘Lock up the night’ is slower and it is almost doom-styled due to the riffing style. It is not interesting at all but when it comes to ‘A pearl’ we get the inclusion of some other elements such as more prominence of keyboards and calmer ballad-esque passages. These are, for Mortification purposes really bad, as for any commercial ‘metal’ album they are ok. The rest follows pretty much in the same vein with some moments interesting but they do not standout at all. The last track ‘D.W.A.M’ is one of those funny endings Steve likes to play and for me, it is the worst of them all and a terrible way to end up the album. This is of course, taking out the rest of boring bonus tracks which are some demo songs, a boring medley from the first death metal albums but with NO heaviness at all. To me, these extend the album to 70 unnecessary minutes since it could have very well ended with ‘Ride the Light’. This is, in summary, Hammer of God: A terrible cover (full of meaning but awful design): heavy metal riffs, terrible distortion, undergrounded vocals, lots of solos, additional elements and instruments, boring length due to the bonus tracks , completely uninspired and boring drumming session and 50% of interesting songs.