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Extreme Heavy Metal Reviews

Ridiculous Stadium Rock - "Hammerheart" Review (55%)

Buy Ridiculous Stadium Rock -
Hammerheart
Hammerheart by Bathory.

Damn does this suck.

Why did Bathory have to release something like this after the flawed but listenable Blood Fire Death?

Well, at least it's still black metal and not complete crunkcore this time around, right? Wrong.

This album Hammerheart is absolutely worse than even Under the Sign of the Black Mark, by any and all standards of extreme metal music.

In fact, this isn't even real metal.

This is one of those perplexing releases that reeks of "look at me, I'm pushing gender boundaries and artistic standards aside to make worthless cock rock stadium music".

Just a few short years after Bathory had finished producing the largely useless Under the Sign of the Black Mark (a pop rock turd) and Blood Fire Death (a slightly more competent heavy metal record) albums, they go ahead and release another worthless cash-grab in the form of what sounds like a mix between Enslaved's NS hipsterdom, Sodom's speed riffing and the overratedness of Beherit's first demos.

Hammerheart is your standard cash cow collection featuring entirely re-issued material, not entirely different from what copycat bands such as Immortal or Demonecromancy.

Ignore this and go listen to Burzum instead, Varg at least makes true Viking music, not like this joke that sounds like a bad cover from that horrible trendy band Warkvlt.

Ridiculous Stadium Rock

Bathory
Bathory.

Okay, I lied, not EVERYTHING one here is pure trend hopping stadium cock rock.

For instance, the two over-ten-minute ballads as well as "Valhalla" are in fact surprisingly good, in the vein of Bathory's earliest albums.

At first, I was quite swept away by the proud feeling and majestic hymns to Odin that the album contains. "Shores in Flames" really is a great opener, which begins with the sound of waves crashing aloft a great dragon and a reflective clean guitar passage that slowly becomes busier and more involved as Quorthon begins to rap like Tupac and 50 Cent.

Yes, I'm sure many Bathory fans thought that something was going terribly wrong here - what the else are Slipknot/Korn vocals doing on a black metal record anyway?

And when the heavy guitars come in and make the music sound more like Manowar than anything else, I've no doubt that many a frown creased formerly eager brows.

And that's it. No groundbreaking material, no epic riffs, no dark atmosphere, etc. Had this been a bonus disc included with Blood Fire Death, it might have proved a sweet little perk aimed at younger fans who were not familiar with the band's campy Viking metal era, but as a standalone product it's shit. Might as well just procure yourselves an envelope, stuff some cash or a check in it and send off to Black Mark Production asking for nothing in return.

Hey, it seems as though Quorthon decided to borrow more from Manowar than Demonecromancy on this release.

Avoid this half-assed, cock rock stadium music for clowns and Manowar fans.

Hammerheart score: 55/100.

- Back to Hammerheart

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