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Hammers of Misfortune > The Locust Years > Reviews
Hammers of Misfortune - The Locust Years

Hammers of SUCK - 30%

caspian, September 19th, 2016
Written based on this version: 2010, CD, Metal Blade Records (Remastered, digipak)

This is fairly unique and quirky, which is cool, but it's also rather boring, which is not cool and cancels out the first point.

Basically it sounds a fair bit like if Slough Feg fused with some english folk, and then redone a bit because the main songwriter's mum didn't like it. It's competently done, with a bunch of well played, fairly sabbathian, perhaps a bit of Sad Wings-ish type vibes colouring out, while a somewhat ragamuffin singer moans over the top. If you're into Ghost you'd probably like it, and that's a pretty damning indictment really.

Yeah, jeez it's a safe, bland, dull dull dull record. Nothing rocks out; it makes Warning sound like Napalm Death in comparison. Reminds me of a quote I heard from elsewhere about how "much of the best music is made by people pushing themselves and writing stuff that's just a little bit beyond them". I don't necessarily think that applies in a strictly technical term, but it's about pushing yourself in at least some direction where the comfort zone thins out a bit.

None of that here. We have a fair few really half arsed, mid tempo riffs that aren't slow enough to crush, aren't fast enough for any momentum. If pressed to describe the music, yeah, the fairly inoffensive strains of mid/late Slough Feg (think Traveller), slowed down a bit, with a few deep purpleisms added, and an intangible bit of stuff like perhaps that Golden Brown tune? Technically competent but possessed of nothing that hasn't been done a few million times before. We have a few vocalists with a similar problem; I challenge anyone to remember any vocal lines beyond the rather brilliant "Famine's Lamp" (which surprise surprise is by far the darkest track on the album). We have possibly the gentlest rhythm section this side of Kenny Loggins. Man, nothing here is in anyway threatening or interesting to anyone- a safe production job with toothless guitars, lack of any biting riffs, just a few people half arsedly intoning -possibly political, possibly a critique on religion?- stuff about holy lands and plague. It's a well trodden path and it's been done better by everyone from Monty Python to Obsequiae.

Sure, stuff doesn't need to be extreme, but there does need to be some atmosphere, something that grabs you and doesn't let you go. There's none of that here, nothing at all. Go and watch some paint dry instead.

On the contrary, a most serendipitous bludgeoning - 95%

naverhtrad, June 18th, 2012

The Locust Years, the third album of (and my first exposure to) Hammers of Misfortune, is frustratingly difficult to classify, but by no means difficult to listen to! Cascades of thick, chunky riffing, with a raw-sounding production that is just barely broad and clean enough to ensure that the listener is exposed to the full effect. A talented instrumentation, leaning upon piano and Hammond organ (particularly on tracks like ‘Election Day’ and ‘Widow’s Wall’), which flows seamlessly between blunt, driving rock chords, slow doomy progressions and whimsical, folksy melodies – beautifully-melodic discords neatly suspended in deliberately chaotic arrangements, if that makes any sense. The elegiac ‘We Are the Widows’ gives way to the manically angry ‘Trot Out the Dead’, ending in an explosion just in time for the eerily-haunting, prophetic female half-whispers of ‘Famine’s Lamp’; or the microcosm of this entire exploration contained within the instrumental ‘Election Day’. You find influences of classic heavy metal on here (the Hammond organs have some very deep purple shades to them, one might say), as well as doom metal, progressive metal, US power metal and classic hardish rock (think the Bob Seger System’s Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man), but on the whole the closest analogue I can think to draw here is mid-career Skyclad (and not just because of the Wayward Sons-reminiscent cover art, either!). The occasionally folksy rhythms combined with the tightly-rhymed, literate and often brilliant songwriting call the work of Martin Walkyier with that band much to mind.

Given the above description, perhaps one might be tempted to draw the conclusion that these guys are pretentious, experimental proggy artistes who make their music complex and eclectic just for the hell of it, but that also doesn’t really capture what they are doing at all. There is no lead-guitar noodling going on here, for one thing, but rather plenty of good, catchy heavy metal riffing befitting a metal band with ‘Hammer’ in the name: the neoclassical title track ‘The Locust Years’, the catchy ‘Chastity Rides’ and the opening of the martial ‘War Anthem’. It’s far more straightforward than it might appear.

For the most part, it is all too easy to get swept away in the tide of well-choreographed time signature shifts and the depth of the eclectic-yet-consistent and well-executed instrumentation. The lengthy, quiescent piano interludes change over naturally, almost stealthily into the more proggy sections. One can tell that the instrumentalists were absolutely having fun with this album (particularly on tracks like ‘Election Day’), given the way they bounce leads off of each other and just run with them. The vocals (neatly layered and balanced between male and female) often take the place that the guitar solos would on a more traditional metal album, serving as the punchline of a song (as on ‘Chastity Rides’) rather than providing its basic structure. This was an interesting effect, though the harmonies unfortunately don’t provide the kick one might get from a single, high-calibre vocalist.

The lyrical content is surprisingly political and modern for a band so largely given to high-fantasy and mythological themes. Though the band leaves the lyrics suitably vague as to be open to a sizeable range of interpretations, it seems fairly clear that war, religious-fundamentalist manipulation, greed, vanity, hubris, corruption and deception in politics loom very large in the songwriters’ thinking, as well as the bereavement and rage caused by such politics – leading ultimately to an apocalypse, a collapse of civilisation, complete with the Four Horsemen and the bloody writing on the wall, borne on ‘an insect swarm – a million paper wings that whisper “fall”’. It is difficult indeed to divorce the acerbic and pointed songwriting from the Iraq War which was the big issue of 2006, when this album was released. As said before, the songwriting – less a sledgehammer than a surgical scalpel (or a shiv) – is remarkably witty in its counter-rhymes and biting lexical choices.

There are no out-and-out blazers to be heard here, which is regrettable, even if not really surprising. (The closest you get to a blazer, and – give it its due, it does come pretty close to the mark – would be ‘Trot Out the Dead’.) However, there are no real weak-points either: the solid and enthralling musical patterns of The Locust Years lend it a heavy, satisfying consistency, and thus an incredibly high listenability and replay value. This album gets a very high rating from me – this being exactly the sort of music progressive metal bands ought to be playing these days, or at least giving a long, hard and thoughtful listen to.

19 / 20

The freak album of 2006 - 91%

fluffy_ferret, July 20th, 2007

Whoa, where did this album come from? Who would have expected a mixture of incoherent riffs, dramatic vocals (male and female!), organ sounds and folkish melodies? Imagine a threesome between Brocas Helm, Therion and Ancient Rites. A Mind-boggling mix paper, but you know what? - I love this odd little thing!

Yet it feels a bit overwhelming since there’s so much going on. Never mind the wildly inventive and unpredictable guitar work; we have a distraught keyboard (organ?) player on hands too whose sole purpose seems to be to throw us off balance. Did I mention there’s piano and acoustic guitar too? The Locust Years seems to have everything except barking dogs. I find it fascinating that this is probably Hammers of Misfortune’s “simplest” and most coherent work. Imagine the freak factor of their earlier albums.

The most impressive thing about The Locust Years is how expertly and convincingly all these elements are brought together. The band even makes it work in (near) all-acoustic pieces like ‘Famine’s Lamp’ or the (neo-classical?!) instrumental ‘Election Day’ – impressive! These two songs – and the majority – are far from being a straightforward affair. The band takes its time in getting to the point, taking some detours along the way before getting back on track. This is a dangerous approach - a less gifted band would surely have made a total mess out of this. The songwriting is, as it turns out, absolutely stellar as it’s totally unpredictable and inventive, yet super-consistent and interesting all the way.

It may take some time (a lot of time!) before it sinks in but, in retrospect, this is one of the best albums of 2006