The End

Considering that the band went on a hiatus that still has not ended two years after this album’s release, The End, intentionally or not, has a prophetic title. And the news it foretold was good. Gallhammer effectively split up after putting this album out and if the contents on The End don’t demonstrate why this is a good thing to you, nothing will.

Most of this album is slow, droning doom metal rendered on bass and drums. No guitarist is credited and I don't recall hearing guitars on any of the songs but for all this album's faults, the lack of metal's cardinal instrument isn't one of them. With The End being propelled mainly by the deep sounds of Vivian Slaughter's bass, the album manages to achieve a particularly negative and apocalyptic atmosphere, which the grimy black metal-meets-crust punk production further amplifies. The appreciation you'll have of said atmosphere will likely give way to boredom about two minutes into the album-opening title track, when you realize the band isn't going to actually do anything with that atmosphere. Throughout this album's three long, doomtastic offerings (which make up roughly half the album's runtime), the band never employs any riffs that even succeed in being OK. Nor does the group manage to deliver any satisfying buildup or epic payoffs. There doesn't even seem to be an honest attempt at structuring here. Just long streams of dread-inducing yet half-hearted bass riffs that proceed slowly without any apparent sense of direction or logical flow. In the absence of sharp riffs or fiery basslines, The End's atmosphere melts away, leaving the music with a weak pulse and little else.

A few of these songs move faster, though. 'Sober' is midpaced, 'Rubbish CG202' is fast and 'Abberation' switches frequently between slower and quicker passages. I have to give the band some credit here for ensuring that a few quicker, more aggressive songs don't seem out of place among compositions that proceed with a doom-laden crawl. Because of the crust punk flavoring in the production and the harsh, bottom-heavy aesthetic all the songs share, the album sounds like a cohesive whole. The faster parts of this album don't offer much relief, though. When this album sprints, it takes the form of speedy, bass-driven moments in the vein of early Bathory, bashing away at you with the most simplistic progressions possible paired with some horrendous yelling.

While we're on the subject, the vocals are an additional source of misery because there weren’t enough of those on this album already. Vivan Slaughter's shrieks and howls are painful. Her voice sounds dry and horribly strained, like she's shouting without employing any real technique and with no regard for keeping her throat healthy despite the strain she's putting on it. She also doesn't seem to be particularly concerned with using her voice to maintain the songs' rhythm and flow. While Slaughter's never out of step with the song, she does seem to just be shouting things at random. Meanwhile, drummer Risa Reaper (I’m not making fun of Japanese people. That’s actually her stage name) provides these shrill J-pop-esque vocals that make her sound like an excited 8-year-old and don’t fit the aesthetic the band is going for. Sugary, cheerful, high pitched ululations on an album that seeks to be as dark and hellish as this? In 'Abberation', in which Reaper's squeaks harmonize roughly with Slaughter's growls, it actually works, in much the same way horror movies sometimes take things that should be cute and makes them creepy. Through the rest of the album, though, the little girl vocals and the music's monstrous, filthy vibe fit about as well as Kevin James' head on Channing Tatum's body.

While it's easy to identify the vocals as a particularly egregious offense, the sad truth is that better vocals wouldn't have saved this album. At its core, The End is something that could only be saved by a complete overhaul, one so drastic that it left virtually nothing of the original release behind. The vocals are merely the aspect here that pushed the album from boring to genuinely painful. Where the band truly went wrong was in assuming an album built on agonizingly dull, content-bereft songs was worth their effort and their belief that a smoky, grimy atmosphere would effectively mask the lack of intelligent songwriting here.

Some people accuse fans of Gallhammer as really only listening to the band because they're an all-female group (which is rare in the world of extreme metal), but that never really applied to me. What drew me into this certainly unique group was their sound--the combination of doom metal, black metal, and crust punk that Gallhammer pulled off so eerily and so excellently on their first two albums, Gloomy Lights and Ill Innocence. Of course, it didn't hurt that I found singer/bassist Vivian Slaughter to be exceptionally hot, but that's beside the point. It was their sound (which was, to me, unique and quite simply awesome), that immediately made me a fan of this group.

Unfortunately, in 2010, guitarist Mika Penetrator departed the band to focus on another group. Rather than give up or find another guitarist, bassist/singer Vivian Slaughter and drummer Risa Reaper (you can probably see what they're doing with the names there) decided to continue on as a duo instead. In 2011, they put out their latest album 'The End'--and it's a significant departure from the sound that initially brought me into Gallhammer. Not in any way a departure for the worst, but it doesn't have that feel that, for me, is characteristic of Gallhammer at their best.

The music is as gloomy, morose, and, in terms of tone and atmosphere, quintessentially 'Gallhammer' as ever, conveying that same despair and overwhelming gloom that they have always been so skilled at portraying. Vivian Slaughter's indecipherable but incredible vocals are as visceral and loaded with desperate emotion as ever, and her bass hasn't lost the driving, distorted tone I've always liked about it. As for drummer Risa Reaper...well, to be fair, neither she nor any of the other members of Gallhammer could be considered particularly skilled with their instruments, so I can't say her talent with drumming is Gene Hoglan-level--but it's the same steady, driving beats we've come to expect from Gallhammer's previous slower, more doomy compositions.

And that brings me to how this differs so significantly from the first two albums. With the departure of Mika Penetrator, Gallhammer decided to focus more on the black metal/doom metal aspects of the music, eschewing the crust punk elements in the process. It's more atmospheric, and the songs shift more to a general feeling of doom and gloom rather than the more focused instrumentation of their first two releases; they're longer on average as well.

In this album, as well, Vivian's snarling is not the only singing present; Risa Reaper's voice is first heard on "Aberration", and when I first heard it I thought at first that Gallhammer had recruited a nine year old girl to do some of the singing. I'm not sure why they made the decision--perhaps the sheer contrast between Risa's light, girly vocals and Vivian's hellish, deep growls and torturous shrieks--but I'm not too big on it. That may only be me, however; perhaps in time I'll come to enjoy it and understand what it lends to the sound musically, but until then, I prefer Vivian's singing a lot more.

So that's "The End"; I won't say it's 'bad', per se, but it's a rather large departure from the sound I've always greatly admired. I just didn't feel the whole time I was listening to it that it was the Gallhammer I first came to be a fan of. I still enjoyed the album, make no mistake; viewing it as a completely impartial observer, I would have rated it higher. But as a fan of Gallhammer it doesn't hold up, for me, to the previous two albums, and let's just say you'll be more likely to find me listening to "Killed by the Queen" and "Crucifixion" than "Wander" and "108=7/T-NA".

(...and I still have no idea what drove them to name the song "108=7/T-NA". Maybe that's another thing I'll figure out the more I listen to this album.)

My first encounter with Japanese all-girl black/doom two-piece Gallhammer was with 2007's Ill Innocence, and it did not leave a good impression. But some people with respectable opinions really like them, so I thought I'd give it another shot.

If you've ever heard the band before, The End will give you no surprises. They still have a lo-fi aesthetic and very simple songs, with some played fast and punky, but most as dirges. Bassist Vivian Slaughter's evil growls are just as impressive as ever, too. Unfortunately, drummer Risa Reaper's squeaky vocals are present here as well. I'm not prepared to say that weird J-pop/J-punk (or whatever it is) vocal has no place in metal, but Gallhammer certainly hasn't found it. But more importantly, the songs are just as boring and confusing as ever.

The title track works just fine to get things started on a low-tempo, but then "Rubbish CG202" is basically the same song, sped up. "Aberration" sounds like the worst entry in a high school talent show that has no winners: it has no discernible riffs and the two vocal styles fight for attention. "Sober" is better, almost finding a place for the squeaks in the simple, short doom track. "Entropy G35" sounds like doomy punk, which I could see someone else liking. But then they end on two overlong dirges with almost no variation, the saxophone noises on "108=7/T-NA" doing little to improve it.

All of this leads to the inevitable conclusion that this band has made their career based on who they are--a couple of Japanese girls in extreme metal--rather than on the music they make. Then again, some people really like it. Maybe I missed the point.

The Verdict: I cannot recommend this album to anyone except the most die-hard Gallhammer fans. It offers nothing new and is quite possibly worse than their last album.

originally written for http://fullmetalattorney.blogspot.com/