2014 is the third straight year that North Carolina’s own Bloody Hammers have produced a full length album, coming hard on the heels of their self titled 2012 début and last years Spiritual Relics, and during that time they have been clearly honing their skills, consolidating their occult rock sound, as well as riding the wave of all things retro that has been recently growing in momentum. ‘Under Satan’s Sun’ does nothing but enhance the reputation of the band.
‘The Town That Dreaded Sundown’ opens the album in fine style, starting with the discordant playground like chant of ‘The Hearse Song’, itself a ballad of death and decay, leading into the song proper of a town haunted by a vampiric night stalker, all set to a fuzzy guitar and haunting keyboards. Harder and heavier is the succeeding ‘Spearfinger’, having a massive hook laden riff, a near perfect combination of simplicity and hard rock sensibility that I would dare even the most cynical and jaded of rockers not to at least nod along to, no matter what their chosen genre may be.
‘Death Does Us Part’ ups the Gothic factor, its structure and theme bringing to mind the best and hardest elements of Nick Cave’s ‘Murder Ballads’ (now that’s a reference you might not have expected from me, eh?), as well as the slow, dark guitar solos of Paradise Lost, whilst follow up ‘The Moon-Eyed People’ has a heavier stoner doom riff. Themes of horror and occult abound, the cover of the album hearkening back to the era of classic Hammer and Roger Corman’s seventies horror movies showing what must be a massive influence on Bloody Hammers’ writing; indeed album closer ‘The Necromancer’ starts with a short instrumental break that could have opened the sound track of many a classic film of that era before the guitar and rhythm section blast in, and Andas Manga sings his darkly crafted tale of magic and terror.
What Bloody Hammer have done with ‘Under Satan’s Sun’ is build on the canon of their work, taking the best elements of psychedelia, doom, stoner, and gothic rock, and brewing them in a witch’s cauldron into a heady, magical, and highly addictive brew. Not one song is out of place or weak, be it the apocalyptic styling of ‘Second Coming’ to the almost sleazy rock of the title track, rather each contributes to the mystical atmosphere of the album. If they band keeps up with the ever increasing quality of their work, touring hard as well as producing ever more solid albums, it can’t be long until the band finds themselves on bigger and bigger stages, and throwing off their cult status. At the moment, only a small number of European dates have been announced to support the album; I can only hope and trust that there will be more and that I manage to make one to see if the band can produce the same superlative sound live.
(8.5/10 Spenny)
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