Register Forgot login?

© 2002-2024
Encyclopaedia Metallum

Privacy Policy

Master's Hammer > Šlágry > Reviews
Master's Hammer - Šlágry

Šlágry - 30%

DCA61112, July 15th, 2018

I had never heard of Master's Hammer before. I stumbled across this band on Spotify while trying to find some new black metal bands. After hearing Formulæ, their 2016 output, I decided to go explore the back catalog of their music on Spotify. I assumed that this would include more of the same classical-tinged black metal that I enjoyed. When I saw the cover for Šlágry, it reminded me of Don't Break the Oath by Mercyful Fate for some reason and I was immediately intrigued. So, with great excitement, I pressed play. Little did I know of the sounds that I would find on this record.

With the first track, "Šavlový tanec", I was pulled in by the crunchy guitar building up in the background and the subtle keyboard line. And then...techno drums and some weird gang vocals. You see, this is where my biggest issue with the album lies. The atmosphere of this album is something that I just can't get behind. Right when there is any semblance of badassery going on to pull me in, something weird just pulls me right back out. I can understand subverting expectations, but this is damn near infuriating. Nothing exemplifies this practice more than the second track, "Ach, synku, synku". It starts of with some nice strings and a piano over that gives off a creepy atmosphere. It brought me back to a place of being 8 years old playing Ocarina of Time for the first time and hearing the Shadow Temple music. It had a way of keeping my attention. Then, three minutes in, you get...something over the drum beat. That something, ladies and gentleman, is Pavarotti doing vocal warm-ups. It just took my care and appreciation for the song and threw it out the window.

The next few songs just displayed how odd this album had become. "Půjdem spolu do Betléma" was just some carnival music with some very strange children practically yodeling over it. "Indiánská píseň hrůzy" has a female choir that sounds quite nice until drunk Pavarotti comes back to impart his weirdness on it. "Carl Czerny op. 849" is just a backwards classical sample. "Rock'n'Roll Music" just sounds like a slowed down record with samples on top. Apparently, this is also a Chuck Berry cover, which I did not pick up on at all. Maybe it's his record slowed down, I'm not sure. The next two are just so bland in my eyes that I couldn't remember what they sounded like if you had asked me right after I heard them. If you've ever heard music that provokes no emotion in you, you will understand where I'm coming from. Finally, the last song on the album, "Hlava modernistova" is a black metal song. It took 9 songs to do so, but, like pulling teeth, they did it. And, well, it's not that great. But, it has some guitar, some proper drums and some growls and shrieks. Hell, even Pavarotti's return on this track isn't that bad. It actually complements it a bit. However, it feels weirdly out of place on this album, which isn't good because they ARE a black metal band.

Overall, this album is odd, to say the least. I think that it's the weirdest album that I've ever heard. I can't quite understand what the point of the album was. It's vastly different from what I have heard by them, so what happened? The album seems either completely uninspired or purposely subversive. While I can appreciate what they were possibly trying to do, it isn't my cup of tea. I would personally just stick with Formulæ, but that's just me.

Master's Sequencer? - 25%

Abominatrix, May 16th, 2005

If anybody remembers the horrible alt-rock band Days of the New, after the release of their very successful debut, the frontman decided to fire all the band members due to their "lack of talent and creativity". he then went on to produce an electronica-tinged record that, unsurprisingly, proved to be a commercial and musical disaster. Some time after 1993, Franta Storm unceremoniously decided to sack the remaining members of Master's Hammer with the exception of then keyboardist Vlasta Voral, ostensibly for the reason that they weren't talented enough. Can anybody guess what happened next?

What happened next was that Master's Hammer (or more specifically, Storm) started making derogatory statements about both rock n roll and metal and the perceived limitations of said genres. The band scrapped the plans for another black metal operetta in the style of "The Jilemnice Occultist" and turned their myopic attention to other pastures, but without abandoning the Master's Hammer name. There is a rumour that this album was produced exclusively for the purpose of angering Herve from Osmose Records. Perhaps pissing off former fans was at least part of the agenda behind this, whether rumour is to be believed or not. Whatever the case may be, this is one strange, misguided and very pretentious album.

What galls me most about this album is its obvious and absolute smugness. It seems that Storm and Voral took this project pretty seriously, and considered it at least a better application of their time and effort than a "real" Master's Hammer album. They even had the cheek to make a ridiculous statement in the album insert to the effect that only those older than twenty-something should listen to the thing!

All this would have been acceptable and quite forgiveable had the music on "Šlágry" been something monumental and powerful, which by all rights it should have been, given the past creative output of the two remaining band members. However, it is likely that the strongest reaction a listener might have to this disc is uproarious laughter.

Specifically, the first song had me in stitches for a very long time. It starts out promisingly, with some sampled ominous french horn lowings with a threatening backdrop of a reverberating and faint distorted guitar tone. Suddenly, like the oncoming rush of an epileptic seizure and with all the grace of a camel floundering in a river, in drops the patttering technotronic beat, and we are "treated" to what would appear to be an irreverent dismemberment of Alexander Katachurian's "Dance of the Sabers", except that I suspect the awful truth is that this was created in all knee-slapping, moustache-twirling seriousness. Cobbled together doesn't even begin to describe this attrocity, which is entertaining in the same way that hearing the opening of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" as performed by an ensemble of cazoos would be entertaining. You have your thumping electronic beat, sampled choirs pitch shifted and brought in from somewhere or other and slapped on to fill the place of the main string theme, sundry Hawkwind-esque noises and tuneless synthetic warbbling, and a chugging distorted guitar (with Franta Storm's usual clear and bassy tone) trying to provide rhythm. The pitch-shifted and slapped on choirs are definitely the most amusing part of the whole ensemble, as well as Storm trying to duplicate the arpegiated orchestral flourish that ends the piece on his guitar!

There's more of the same to be had on this album, and then some. Raped and mutilated classical pieces, presumably put forward with a serious or semi-serious intent and sounding like Laibach with zero budget. But lest you think these Czech bastards are utterly dry and humourless, they throw on Chuck Berry's "Rock N Roll Music" too, and to show their general distaste for the style of music said song praises they slow the 45 RPM record down to 33 and mix it on Storm's PC, together with weird percussive clangings, synthesised kettle drums and spooky string patches. Maybe this is supposed to symbolise the remorseless marching plague of African music overrunning the Czech countryside?

We also get circus marches, lots of pitch shifting, a small boys' choir (sampled, no doubt), and....one black metal track, tagged onto the very end of the album like a final slap in the face letting everyone know just what this album could have been had Franta Storm decided to pull his head out of his arse for long enough. For what it's worth, my favourite track is the lengthy "Ach, Synku, Synku", which strikes me as the most thoughtfully composed piece here, reminding me a little of some twentieth century French symphonic music or maybe John Cage with its ponderous synthesised cello strains and some dynamic piano work. The song makes some interesting use of ambient noise and percussion, before erupting with a loud, brassy fan-fare at its finish that is like a bolder and clearer repetition of a gently stated earlier theme.

As for the one black metal track, if you can make it all the way to track nine and if you can take it even remotely seriously after what's come before, it sounds a bit unfinished, with the obvious computerised drums that sound about as effective as matchsticks and no bass presence whatsoever, not to mention a really laughable verse riff that sounds like a stupid kid trying to make fun of modern BM guitar styles. However, it manages to be quite majestic in parts, with a strong, operatically sung chorus and a neat recapitulative guitar solo closing off the track. Perhaps the former band members could have helped turn this into something great. We'll never know.

So the last Master's Hammer album sounds like a collision between Laibach and the Residents on a freeway after both bands have had most of their equipment stolen by rampaging African tribesmen intent on spreading the vile scourge of rock music. What a waste, I say. Nevertheless, I can't utterly hate this. There is something almost endearing about the absolute pomposity of it all. Who exactly were they trying to impress, and were they in any way aware of how abysmally they failed to be impressive in the way that probably mattered to them most? In its seemingly high-flung predelections to be "serious music for serious people" this album manages to fall flat on its proverbial face in the most spectacular fashion, proving in fact to serve the opposite of its probable intent...the kind of record you put on while you and your friends are all drunk and reminiscing and desperately need someone else to laugh at. The beauty of all this is that in the end MH have tried so hard to prove that they're a cut above those immature, vapid metal bands but their exuberant, youthful metal records will always be remembered whereas this one is already near forgotten and buried, doomed to forever be sold for $2 by Osmose, who won't ever reprint it and who still can't get rid of the damned thing fast enough.