Gloomy Lights

Thanks to my initial scepticism regarding Gallhammer after first hearing this album, realizing the true brilliance of this particularly insane band’s take on crust/black metal was delayed for many months. Only after recent rediscovery of “Gloomy Lights” was I forced to rethink my first impression.

Upon initial listens this album seems discordant to the point of dementia, with delirious screaming and manic instruments, a noisy mess. Still, all the attention Gallhammer has been garnering in the underground press begs the question, is there more to it than simply Japanese girls screaming their heads off?

The answer is a resounding yes. This is a very interesting album that matures only after repeated listens, it certainly didn’t grasp me from the get-go. It is a black-doom masterpiece inspired by the likes of Hellhammer and Darkthrone, but with enough distance from the Motherland to keep it free from comparison. While not much praise can be given to any of the members in particular, the overall effect remains immensely strong and certainly confident. The standout element is certainly the intense vocal deliveries, a part played by all 3 members albeit mostly by Vivian Slaughter, with furious shrieks and demented growls resounding throughout the album and adding a ferocity that belies the catchy rhythms of the songs. This is not an album to be picked apart in search of incredible composition or eloquent song structures, instead it should be experienced as a whole, as a mood-altering exercise in disorder. The atmosphere is the most important element on the album with immense effect both on the catchy songs and the slower, more doom-laden tracks like “Endless Nauseous Days” and “Color of Coma”.

“Gloomy Lights” is one of the most sincerely disturbed and wholly insane albums ever to be released. These sometimes catchy songs will catch you off-guard and are certain to leave scars.

Sensational.

Prior to giving "Gloomy Lights" a number of spins in recent weeks I will admit to having been a little apprehensive of the attention given to Gallhammer, reckoning their unholy racket has brought attention on itself through it's creators being three cute little Japanese ladies, and little else. I can now however eat humble pie and say that is definitely not the case, but the fact that this IS made by three cute little Japanese ladies somehow makes perfect sense, staggering as that may seem.

This lo-fi recording, originally released in 2004 but recently reissued by Peaceville, showcases Gallhammer's knack for writing engaging headbangable songs despite obviously limited recording and production skills. The simple rehearsal room feel, completely devoid of recording studio spit and polish, brings out the charisma in the band's punked up and fucked up songs: see for yourself in "Lost My Self" - full of Darkthrone-esque crusty swagger and Discharge-d impatience; or "State of Gloom", where the girls plod along in Reverend Bizarre-like doom greatness. Aside from the perverted pleasure I gain from listening to such primitive music in this day and age, it is the demented and barbaric shrieks of Mika Penetrator and Vivian Slaughter that add the extra layer of black icing on this worryingly crusty cake. Coming from the mouths of any man they would give Varg Vikerne's howl of olden times a run for it's money, but from two women it is even more pleasing on the ear.

Despite bands like Darkthrone still feeling the love for creating run-down battered old records, and fellow Japs Coffins being guilty as charged in the crime of recording (worthy) disgusting death metal, it is Gallhammer I find most enjoyable out of this brigade. Free from the 'scene pressure' to conform that almost certainly affects the majority of bands from Scandinavia, Japan's collective of artists such as Coffins, Sabbat, Sigh, as well as Gallhammer, all have the knack of seeming free in sound and spirit, living in a musical landscape not defined by any existing 'sound' or scene. Through this, and despite obvious similarities to other equally depraved bands, Gallhammer carry a unique edge on their debut album "Gloomy Lights" that rubbishes my assumption of their relative success being based on image alone. I hereby apologise forthwith.

Originally written for www.Rockfreaks.net

Any Gallhammer review generally begins with or at some point involves the reviewer talking about how he (there's really no 'she', when you get down to it) appreciates the music for the music alone, and it has nothing to do with the fact that it's played by three attractive Japanese women. Of course, despite saying this, the reviewer generally spends a whole lot of the review's body harping on the fact that they are, in fact, three attractive Japanese women playing the music. The elements emphasized change from person to person- some people like to talk more about how they're attractive, some about how they're Japanese, and still more about how they're women- but the general result is the same: a whole lot more emphasis is being placed on who the members of the band are, or, more importantly, how they look and what sort of genitals they have, than judging the music on its own merits.

The very first time I listened to 'Gloomy Lights', I realized two very important things:

1. Most of the people who say they like Gallhammer's music are lying.

2. A good chunk of the people that actually do like their music are liking it for all the wrong reasons.

I think it's hard to deny that if Gallhammer was composed of unattractive European men, like most metal bands, they would not have ever been signed to Peaceville Records. That's not to denigrate Gallhammer's music; I greatly enjoy this album and feel that the band does what they do almost extraordinarily well. I have no doubt, though, that they were signed for being Japanese and female much more than any musical talents, simply because there's a hell of a lot of bands in the world doing pretty much the same thing that Gallhammer does but aren't getting signed due to their relatively nondescript appearance. I bet that if you showed Peaceville a picture of Gallhammer's members, they would have signed them without ever hearing the music. There's a lot of Celtic Frost and Hellhammer worshipping bands out there, and while Gallhammer is certainly one of the better ones, there are others, generally composed of hideous, filthy men, that are better. I bet this extends to most of the people listening to the music, because I have tremendous doubts that so many people genuinely like Gallhammer for reasons unrelated to aesthetics.

Were this a band of German or American males, they would have about a hundredth as many fans, because the music that Gallhammer plays is almost inherently unlikable. It's ugly, dark, raw, and harsh in a whole lot of ways, and many of which are ways unpalatable to most metal fans, even. It's not that this is some new, suddenly discovered sound that the metal scene has latched onto; it's just been made obvious through a visually pleasing medium. This music, if you can call it that, stretches way back into the '80s and has been done by many; it's just been made more accessible because, wow, little Japanese girls are playing it! Aren't they fierce little schoolgirls! Please, most people are full of shit when they say they like Gallhammer's music because it's not POSSIBLE that so many people like this harsh, minimalist, anti-musical sound. This is the sort of music that couldn't be made a commodity, so what did Peaceville, and, to some extent, Gallhammer themselves do? They pushed the music completely into the background and emphasized the most trivial and meaningless parts of the whole package for people too stupid to tell the difference.

Anyway, Gallhammer's music. What we have is a very primitive, crusty, doom-influenced sort of black/thrash which takes almost entirely after Celtic Frost, Hellhammer, and a bit of 'A Blaze In The Northern Sky'-era Darkthrone. It's constructed as minimally as possible: there are no fills of any sort, just a shuffle from one riff to another. Everything is extremely simple, extremely repetitive, and extremely droning. The playing of the instruments is completely bare-bones and only semi-competent, though not overtly sloppy. The interesting thing, though, is that it's not music based on atmosphere, though it clearly does have a great deal of it: a sick, decrepit, verging on insanity, nightmarish feel that isn't replicated very frequently; it's probably what sets this band apart the most from others. But it's not the main element. Everything is based on the individual sounds of what's occurring: every empty clack of snare, raw, only about half-distorted guitar and bass running through the four chord riffs in a lazy, loose fashion, and each semi-vomited syllable of vocals. You have to enjoy the actual SOUNDS of everything occurring, instead of taking joy in structure or greater themes, because there's really none of the latter.

The overall feel and rhythm of the music is sort of a vacant, zombielike shuffle towards nowhere. There are riffs, but no real 'riffing': the chords aren't played with particular conviction. It's like hands are sliding over fretboard incidentally more than with any sense of purpose, and the picking hand just sort of glides over the strings in an empty fashion. Even the vocals sound sort of loose and strained, like every word is the last after a long session of hoarse screaming at nothing in particular. The tempo is exclusively midpaced or slow: there's no blasting, no double bass, and essentially no tremolo picking. The songs are all dirges of one sort or another, crawling along until some arbitrary amount of playing time is achieved and everything just gets abandoned. It's the epitome of a band not really giving a fuck at all; they're just playing the music because they have nothing better to do. It's this or sit in the dark for hours at a time, unable to get to sleep.

There's a listlessness and emptiness to the compositions which is hard to describe. It's the music of people who are waiting for something that will never come. It's music all about insomnia and an inability to find a purpose, so you just go through the next day, and the one after that, and yet more after that in hopes of finding something better that will never come. You can't even describe it as tortured: it's too apathetic to manage that. It's more sullen and tired and beaten down by the dullness of everyday life than any real emotion. Each song is just another day of vague, grey skies, unfulfilling meals, and a lack of interaction with the people around you. The only atmosphere I can think of that's similar to this is Drear's side of their 'Solipsis/Death Of The Sun' split with Great American Desert: it doesn't care because there's nothing to care about.

When it comes to the music, this is nothing special. All the specialness is retained in atmosphere and sound more than any high-minded composition. And this is where people go wrong: reading more into Gallhammer than there is, because it's music based the LACK of meaning, not some hidden one perceptible only to an esoteric few. Most people either fall into the category of trying to hard too like it and overblowing its importance, or going with the 'heh, boobs' angle and ignoring the music entirely. The way to truly enjoy 'Gloomy Lights' is neither. What you should do: treat Gallhammer like any other band, and listen to the music naturally, without preconceptions or cleverly chosen aesthetics clouding your head. I promise you that it's a much more rewarding experience, even if it doesn't have as much flash or glamour.

Gallhammer is an all-female band from Japan, they are a response to the infamous band Hellhammer. ‘Gloomy Lights’ is their first full-length, but it has know quite a lot of success because it’s been re-released by Bestial Burst in Europe and by Goat Sucker Records for Mexico. The band has even signed a deal with Peaceville Records. What three girls screams can do!

The CD starts off with a great building of a dark, sick atmosphere by using a slow guitar riff supported by background screams. Then Gallhammer unleashes all their filth upon you with doomy tracks, influenced by genres like Black Metal and Noise. The song-structures are quite simple, but I really like the sick sound on the album, together with the deep grunts of the lady’s. Too bad the production isn’t that great…

The lyrics are very simple and cannot be called poetical masterpieces. They mostly deal about hate and suffering. It’s similar with this CD: Everything is brought quite simple (just look at the cover art), but this doesn’t make the music bad. The atmosphere is very important, and in my opinion they’ve done a great job building this sick doom atmosphere.

To conclude I’d this is a quite good release because of the atmosphere. The three lady’s have done a good job and I’m curious for their next releases and to see them live some day.