A note on why the site looks shit

Because I don’t pay for it anymore.

When I started MonkHammer I forked out a reasonable sum to make the site look top notch, and for a couple of years it did, but when it came time to renew at the end of 2019, I chose to write a novel instead and spend the money on beer. Basically, listening to lots of crap metal and wading through thousands upon thousands of emails was starting to feel a bit too similar to my day job and I needed a change.

Anyway, I let the site revert to its basic WordPress format and as a result all the images have become massive. I’m sure I could go back and change them all if I cared or wanted, but …

meh

Helhorse – Hydra

Observant readers may have noticed that MonkHammer has been pretty quiet of late. Sadly the end is nigh for various reasons, but there’s still time for a couple more posts before the fat lady sings.

Three years ago, we reviewed Helhorse’s eponymous third album.
Three months ago, the Danes announced their fourth, Hydra.
Shortly after, they challenged us to “crayonify” that one too.
Then they revealed the artwork.
The rather intricate artwork.
Yeah, thanks for that.

So here we are. The challenge has been accepted, the crayons have been warmed up, and it turns out I still have less artistic talent than an Ed Sheeran tribute act. Seriously, you’d get better results feeding the crayons to a cat and then pressing the canvas down on its litter [Ed’s note: Little known fact, this is exactly how Ed wrote his hit single Lego Shithouse]

After taking the time to destroy the artwork, it would be remiss not to at least mention the album itself too, especially since it’s such a beast. Continuing the trend of 2016’s eponymous album, which quelled the hardcore urges of old in favour of getting toked to the tits, Hydra is absolutely stacked to the gills with thick, fat stoner riffs, delivered with a dense sludge crunch and a hard rock, hard rockabilly heart that makes it swing harder than a hippo in a hammock. Equal parts swagger and danger, the albums lunges at you like a grinning drunk with a broken bottle in one hand and a copy of West Side Story in the other, forcing the best bits of Clutch, Volbeat, Black Label Society and High on Fire through a crusty punk filter. Having finally realised exactly what it is that makes Helhorse work, Hydra sees the band capitalise on their strengths to deliver a grunting, crooning behemoth of anthemic hard rock glory.

Hydra is out now

Jamie Lenman – Shuffle

Even for Jamie Lenman, a man whose eclectic tastes have confounded and delighted fans in equal measure ever since he first picked up a guitar, Shuffle is a left turn. Following 2017’s spectacular Devolver album with a set of covers is one thing, but an album of mixed-media reinterpretations covering music, film, TV, gaming and books…?! Eh?
The album starts with a fairly traditional one-two, fortifying The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows with a pulsating rhythm that should make old-school Reuben fans very, very happy indeed, followed by a truly menacing take on Adamski and Seal’s Killer, before taking its first foray into the relative unknown with a fantastically louche Faith No More-esque rendition of the Taxi Driver soundtrack. Then the gloves come off. A feral take on the Popeye theme tune (or the playground version many know better) leads into a rendition of a scene from a short film, followed by Lenman’s take on the Seikilos epitaph, the oldest surviving complete musical composition known to man, and that’s just side one. Side two still has Trent Reznor bopping to Cyndi Lauper’s She Bop; an audiobook chapter of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick; a drone metal version of Hey Jude; and a haunting, piano-led rendition of Jake Thackray’s anti-war epic The Remembrance to see you out. Short of adding a personal take on Theresa May’s Fields of Wheat speech, or an audio description of one of our #CrayonAlbumCovers, or Dave from Barnsley’s last fart, it’s hard to imagine what other mediums he could possibly have covered.
There aren’t many artists who would even think of tackling such a project, even fewer with the creative freedom to execute it and the talent to make it work, but in Lenman’s hands every artistic whim sounds utterly captivating. Most will undoubtedly skip the spoken word pieces on repeat listens, but even that kind of feels like the point given the skipping interludes that pepper the album, and the traditional musical covers more than make up for any shortfall. A fascinating insight into the mind of one of Britain’s greatest artistic assets, and a worthy stop-gap while we patiently await this modern marvel’s next move. Fuck knows what that will be though!

Shuffle is out Friday 5 July on Big Scary Monsters

The St Pierre Snake Invasion – Caprice Enchanté

There’s something surprisingly modest about The St Pierre Snake Invasion. Whether coiled tightly round your throat or cooing softly at your feet, their mathy hardcore always comes imbued with a strange sense of comfort and ease, like a square peg obstinately disobeying the laws of physics to slide carefree into a round hole. Sophomore album Caprice Enchanté twists and turns more often than a bag of bootlaces, high-fiving influences at an almost hysterical pace, but although it’s an exhausting ride it never fails to exhilerate, with musical and lyrical earworms popping up amid the clatter at an alarming rate. One is never far from another “Fuck Yes!” moment, and really what more could you want from an album. By all accounts, Caprice Enchanté was an absolute bitch to create (absent producers, blown voices, departing members), and that is reflected in a slightly more serious mood than free-running, bunny-hopping debut A Hundred Years A Day, but the simple truth is that if you liked that album, you should love this one. The sound of a thousand ideas per second crashing through a solid wall of West Country cynicism, supervised by The Dillinger Escape Plan and Every Time I Die.

Caprice Enchanté is out 21 June and can be pre-ordered here

Recent album roundup

For regular readers, it won’t have gone amiss that MonkHammer has been quieter than a Threatin audience of late. There are a number of reasons for this, many of them articulated far better than I could muster by Sean Reid in his recent piece on Already Heard, but at the risk of pissing off the relentless Venom Prison cheerleading squad (meh), there simply hasn’t been all that much to get excited about this year. Until now….
The last few weeks have seen a marked rise in noteworthy releases, and whilst we simply don’t have the time, energy or willing to give each of these albums the full reviews they deserve, they’re all worth your attention in some way or another. So here’s a quick rundown of what’s been filling MonkHammer’s ears of late:

ARTIST: Pizza Tramp
ALBUM: Grand Relapse
LABEL: TNS Records
GENRE: Punk
BEST SONG: I Got Work in the Morning

Where does one start with a band like Pizza Tramp? Probably with a beer or a line if you want to do it properly. Snotty one-minute, three-chord (if you’re lucky) punk about getting up, getting loaded and getting back on it doesn’t come better than this. Whereas past releases have had a tendency to feel like scrappy collections masquerading as albums, the better production, better songs and better titles of Grand Relapse (Neville Clartos and He’s Gone Full Mitchell for starters) mark it out as a true title-fight contender. A masterclass in the serious art of twatting about.

ARTIST: Die Chihuahua Die!
EP: Lead Slag
LABEL: Self-release
GENRE: Punk
BEST SONG: No Swayze, No Wayze

If The Bronx-style punk ‘n roll about Patrick Swayze, Chevy Chase, Danny Dyer and strangle-wank champions David Carradine and Michael Hutchence doesn’t pique your interest, then either you’re younger than 30 or you have no soul, or both. But if raucous punk rock filled with out of date cultural references is your thing, then welcome to your new favourite band. Catchy as fuck and heavy on the riffs, the unexpected return of these Welsh maniacs doesn’t seem to have been heralded with the religious fervour it deserves, so change that and get on it now. There isn’t a band alive that deserves a second chance the way Die Chihuahua Die! do.

ARTIST: Cokie The Clown
ALBUM: You’re Welcome
LABEL: Fat Wreck Chords
GENRE: Acoustic punk
BEST SONG: That Time I Killed My Mom

To call NOFX frontman Fat Mike’s solo debut as alter-ego Cokie the Clown haunting would be doing a disservice to the supernatural. It’s unlikely you’ll have heard anything as emotionally unsettling in a while, but like the best horror, once you’re in it’s impossible to look away. Flashes of punk, folk, and grotesque carnivale provide the mottled skin for a series of dark, masochistic parables that make for one of the most affecting listens of the year, with a willful lack of rhyme on occasion adding to the sense of brutal honesty. If you’re not afraid of the dark, there is light to be found, just don’t expect to be smiling at the end.

ARTIST: The Damned Things
ALBUM: High Crimes
LABEL: Nuclear Blast
GENRE: Rock
BEST SONG: Cells

Album number two from the Anthrax, Every Time I Die, Fall Out Boy and now Alkaline Trio side-project is a less urgent affair than debut Ironiclast, and as a result a little on the forgettable side. Opener Cells has a swagger to it, but elsewhere a distinct lack of bullseyes makes for a somewhat pedestrian affair. Whereas 2010’s debut strode defiantly over the pitfalls of the dreaded “supergroup” tag, providing much more than the sum of its parts, the follow-up tumbles clumsily into those traps, failing to live up to the promise of its personnel. Workmanlike, but sadly somewhat unremarkable.

ARTIST: L7
ALBUM: Scatter The Rats
LABEL: Blackheart Records
GENRE: Rock / grunge
BEST SONG: Garbage Truck

This one hurts. Rescued from the jaws of defeat by Joan Jett’s Blackheart Records following the rather unsavoury demise of crowd-funding platform PledgeMusic, L7’s first new album in 20 years packs far fewer punches than we were promised by the initial reunion singles, neither of which are included here. Tame is probably the kindest word for it, but harsher critics might choose boring, with most songs toeing a fairly lazy garage rock line, only occasionally hinting at the alt-metal/grunge attitude that singled the band out in their heyday. Better than Slap Happy but a far cry from Bricks Are Heavy, Scatter the Rats is alright, but feels like it could have been so much more.

ARTIST: Danko Jones
ALBUM: A Rock Supreme
LABEL: Rise Above
GENRE: Rock
BEST SONG: Burn In Hell

There’s something hugely comforting about the fact Canadian rockers Danko Jones are not only still going strong, but still gaining momentum in 2019. Not every band can get away with being so unashamed about their love of drinking beers, rocking out and screwing chicks on the road, but not every band does it with this much good humour, goodwill and straight up respect. It’s a fine line that could easily collapse into sexist parody, but Danko and co are so damn good at this thing that it’s literally impossible to begrudge them. There isn’t a band alive with a clearer idea of exactly who they are in 2019.

ARTIST: Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes
ALBUM: End of Suffering
LABEL: International Death Cult
GENRE: Indie pop
BEST SONG: Heartbreaker

In all honesty, were it not for Gallows and the first two Rattlesnakes albums, End of Suffering probably wouldn’t even get a sniff on MonkHammer. Musically speaking, this is so far removed from Carter’s past output, even Pure Love, that it’s just not something we feel comfortable critiquing. Bold lyrics on mental health and the strains of modern life aside, the songs too often glow in the embers of post-punk where once they roared in the fires of hardcore, leaving MonkHammer confused and unable to form sentence good. Fair play to the man for channeling the spirit of Amy Winehouse on Love Games though, that takes some brass! And the album entered the UK charts at Number 4, so what the fuck do we know!?

ARTIST: Asomvel
ALBUM: World Shaker
LABEL: Heavy Psych Sounds Records
GENRE: Motörhead
BEST SONG: Smokescreen

Any number of Motörheads can Motörhead a couple of Motörheads, write a few Motörheads and do a passable impression of Motörhead, but it takes real Motörheads to go as deep as Motörhead on their third Motörhead. Just watch the Motörhead for the Motörhead to see what we Motörhead. Even Motörhead doesn’t go this Motörhead! If we were to Motörhead World Shaker as a Motörhead Motörhead, it would likely Motörhead in the top Motörhead of the band’s Motörhead, losing Motörheads only for not being the Motörhead Motörhead, which is probably all they want to Motörhead. The only notable difference between Motörhead and Motörhead these days is the lack of a Motörhead. Motörhead must be kicking themselves they missed that Motörhead.

TRANSLATION: Any number of chancers can grab a couple of mates, write a few riffs and do a passable impression of Lemmy, but it takes real dedication to go as deep as Asomvel on their third album. Just watch the video for the title track to see what we mean. Even Daniel Day Lewis doesn’t go this method! If we were to review World Shaker as a Motörhead album, it would likely fall in the top half of the band’s catalogue, losing points only for not being the real deal, which is probably all they want to hear. The only notable difference between Asomvel and their heroes these days is the lack of an umlaut. They must be kicking themselves they missed that detail.

The Wildhearts – Renaissance Men

For a while there, following a couple of anniversary tours and last year’s Britrock Must Be Destroyed jaunt with Terrorvision, Reef and Dodgy, it looked like The Wildhearts had been relegated to the bin marked “90s Nostalgia”. However, rather than signalling an unwarranted and unwelcome end, the tours instead sparked a rebirth, reuniting the classic lineup of Ginger, CJ, Danny McCormack and Rich Battersby. The result of this (apologies in advance) renaissance is Renaissance Men, the band’s first album in 10 years and arguably their best since 1993 debut Earth vs. The Wildhearts. Clearly something very wonderful happens when these four men get together.
From the urgent intro of Dislocated to the abrupt ending of Pilo Erection it’s clear that no bandwagons have been involved in the making of this album, and this is Wildhearts as we know and love ’em, but only the absolute very best will do. Whereas past releases have offered flashes of influence (a glimmer of The Beatles here, a Ramones riff or Stiff Little Fingers melody there) Renaissance Men sounds like a band delving into the back catalogue of one band and one band only, The Wildhearts. Tracks like Fine Art of Deception, Diagnosis and Emergency (Fentanyl Babylon) sound like they have always been on Earth vs, you just didn’t notice until now, and unofficial Splattermania sequel My Kinda Movie could have come straight off their much underrated eponymous sixth or even The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed, while CJ’s Little Flower is a full power PHUQ-fest. On top of that, the Frank Turner-featuring Let ‘Em Go might just be the most anthemic song Ginger has every written. Just let that last sentence sink in for a moment. The most anthemic song Ginger has ever written. Ginger Wildheart. Fucking hell!
In 2010, MonkHammer was in a dark place. A holiday was needed and a holiday was taken. Among the trips to volcanic springs, servings of whale and puffin soup, and nights out with people claiming to be Bjork’s niece, a day-long snowmobile safari was booked. Atop an Icelandic glacier, feeling a thousand miles from anyone and anything, travelling at what felt like 80mph over pristine white snow with a hazy afternoon sun high in the sky and a tour group way ahead trickling over the horizon like ants, the secret MP3 player hidden beneath my 14 layers selected The Jackson Whites from The Wildhearts’ previous release, Chutzpah. With every riff and chorus of that song I felt more alive, more invincible, more capable of tackling literally anything the world could throw at me. In that moment I was unstoppable. Put simply, that feeling is Renaissance Men.
Welcome back, boys.

Renaissance Men is out now via Graphite Records

Angel Du$t – Pretty Buff

For a band that boasts members of hardcore acts Trapped Under Ice and Turnstile, Angel Du$t sure are twee these days. The band have always worn their love of pop proudly on their sleeves, but on new album Pretty Buff that passion is pushed to bold new levels and worn not just on their sleeves, but also their trousers, gloves, hats, socks, shoes, jumpers, jackets and underpants too. With guitars only occasionally plugged in and percussion often limited to background maracas, bongos and cowbells, the change of pace is initially jarring following the clattering melodic hardcore of 2016’s Rock The Fuck on Forever, but if you’re willing to forgive and forget, there is a lot to fall in love with. At their tenderest, tracks such as opener Not Fair and surf-pop ballad Light Blue come across like long-lost Lemonheads or Plain White T’s demos, while the pacier likes of Big Ass Love, Push and Five veer closer to The Subways or Green Day’s garage rock side-project The Foxboro Hot Tubs, with occasional blink-182 vocal phrasings. Melody is king, the choruses are huge, and the album is stacked with feel-good Beach Boys vibes, but the overriding feeling is of something that builds but never bites. An obstinate refusal to go full pelt and deliver that satisfying crunch makes for a frustrating, albeit enjoyable listen, and while there is undoubtedly a huge audience for this new direction, bear in mind its probably not the same kids that have been back-flipping off Turnstile’s stage or windmilling to Trapped Under Ice anytime lately.

Pretty Buff is out now on Roadrunner

Album Roundup: While She Sleeps, Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, Backyard Babies and Bus

While She Sleeps – So What?

The rise of Sheffield metalcore merchants WSS has been one of the more satisfying stories of British metal in recent years, a true underdog tale that has seen the band claw their way bit by bit into the big leagues with a mix of steel city determination, riffs the size of rhinos and a real sense of us against them, so there’s a lot riding on the success of So What?, their fourth full length. Much has already been written about the band’s decision to go a bit more experimental this time, and there are indeed more risks taken here, but contrary to popular belief the album is nothing like as shocking as some would have you believe. As a continuation of the sidesteps made on 2017’s You Are We, the album actually makes a lot of sense, and no amount of electronic squeaks or descents into grime can derail a band this brazen. For all its quirks, the roots of So What? are still bedded in ferocious metalcore filled with huge choruses, huger breakdowns and the hugest of hearts, and the album can broadly be defined as good songs punctuated by great moments. Whether you think it’s better than past efforts will largely depend on your willingness to die for the WSS brand, but you’d be a fool to suggest that moments like the initial drop in The Guilty Party and the glitchy riff of the title track won’t sound fucking enormous in the arenas Sleeps now deservedly find themselves.

So What? is available now via the band’s own Sleeps Brothers label

Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard – Yn Ol I Annwn

The final part of Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard’s trilogy of albums following 2015’s Noeth Ac Anoeth and 2017’s Y Proffwyd Dwyll is not for the faint-of-heart. A psychedelic, psychoactive, psychopathic trip into folk-tinged planet-smashing doom, the album creeps and stomps across the brain like the soundtrack to waking up alone in deep space aboard the Nostromo. Atmospherically claustrophobic and crushingly heavy, yet also unnervingly beautiful, Yn Ol I Annwn comes across like the siren call of a sentient black hole, Jessica Ball’s glorious, lilting doomed Dubstar vocals enticing all who hear them to glorious destruction.

Yn Ol I Annwn is out now via New Heavy Sounds

Backyard Babies – Silver & Gold
Album number eight from Swedish sleaze rockers Backyard Babies offers little in the way of surprises, but since literally no one asked for that, this is most definitely “a good thing”. Straddling the line between punks playing rock and rockers playing punk, Silver & Gold at times feels a little tamer than previous releases, and certainly starts better than it ends, but the rampaging spirit of rock and roll burns bright on tracks like Shovin Rocks, Bad Seeds and Ragged Flag, which bounds along like Guns N’ Roses giving Duff McKagan the keys to the bus for a change. A solid return from Dregen and co, and quality dinner party music for ageing fans of Danko Jones, The Wildhearts and their snotty ilk.

Silver & Gold is out now via Century Media Records

Bus – Never Decide
If you thought While She Sleeps were throwing everything they’ve got into the pond to see what floats, wait until you get a load of Greek quartet Bus’ RidingEasy Records debut Never Decide, which can’t decide whether to pursue proto-stoner biker blues, straight-up Black Sabbath worship, Primus playing the nursery rhymes of your nightmares, Uncle Acid-style occult rock or half-speed Kill ‘Em All Metallica. Without doubt one of the week’s more intriguing releases, it’s impossible to know quite where the album will go next, but stick with it, because it’s only after This King wraps proceedings up with a combination of all those clashing influences that things start to make sense. Before you know it, you’ll be wondering how no one else has found this same groove.

Never Decide is out now via RidingEasy Records

Mark Morton – Anesthetic

At a screening of Lamb of God’s heart-wrenching As The Palaces Burn documentary in 2014, two things struck MonkHammer about softly-spoken guitarist Mark Morton. Firstly, how disturbingly similar he was to a friend’s boyfriend of the time, from his mannerisms down to the length of his beard, and secondly how thoroughly affable he seemed. Considering how aggressive and confrontational his work with Lamb of God can be, the man comes across as a genuinely kind and humble soul, that friend your mum actually likes, the one who’s “not like those other riff raff”, and it’s this quality that makes his debut solo album Anesthetic one of the most star-studded collaborations in years. Seriously, just look at the guest list: Mark Lanegan, Josh Todd, Steve Gorman, Marc Ford, Mike Inez, Ray Luzier, Roy Mayorga, Dave Ellefson, Chuck Billy, Myles Kennedy, Paulo Gregoletto, Alex Bent, Alissa White-Gluz, Jacoby Shaddix, Jean-Paul Gaster, Jake Oni, Randy Blythe… Even if you can’t stand LoG you have to admit that’s impressive!
Written over the course of several years (which makes sense considering the roll call), the album largely avoids the obvious risks of becoming just another Lamb of God album by virtue of both the variety of personnel involved and the fact that all 10 songs feature a co-write. As much Morton’s solo baby as it is the sum of its parts, the album’s greatest weapon is the guitarist’s seemingly inherent ability to write to his co-conspirators’ strengths, weaving himself into the very DNA of their contributions like a virus and pulling the strings from the inside. No one is required to try anything new and no one is asked to step outside their comfort zone, they are simply welcomed with open arms and invited to throw down. As a result, the album often comes across like a compilation of new tracks from the various vocalists’ day jobs, whether that be the nu-metal barks of Linkin Park on Cross Off, the arena rock stylings of Alter Bridge on Save Defiance, the thrashy chug of Testament on The Never, or the bluesy grunge of Mark Lanegan’s solo work on Axis. The fact that every song on the album also features a signature Morton-groove and is a solid 7 out of 10 is just the icing on a very impressive cake. Interestingly, the only time Morton fails to perfectly match singer to song is when he steps up to the mic himself on Imaginary Days, a mid-paced stomp that would have lent itself well to Steve Brooks (Torche), Jason Shi (ASG / Wildlights) or William DuVall (Alice in Chains). Still, both song and Morton hold their own, and it’s only the preceding Reveal featuring singer/songwriter Naeemah Maddox that really comes closes to a misfire, its acid jazz Incubus vibes wielding their own charms but ultimately standing out like Jay Kay at a Cannibal Corpse show. With enough Lamb of God to keep the die-hards happy and enough “other” to pull anyone else in, Anesthetic does absolutely nothing to diminish Morton’s already solid reputation, asking more questions about what the man is capable of than it answers.

Anesthetic is out 1 March on Spinefarm

Wheel – Moving Backwards

It’s been almost 13 years since Tool last deemed mankind worthy of an album, and as we tentatively quimper into what many would have us believe are the vinegar strokes of the long and agonising wait for a follow-up, it seems Finnish/British devotees Wheel have had enough. Or as frontman James Lascelles puts it, “while we wait for that next Tool album, we thought we’d just make what we’d want to hear”.
The band’s debut full-length, Moving Backwards, is relatively unashamed in its quest for that end goal, marrying battle-ready riffs with propulsive atmospherics and long, driving builds, often landing satisfyingly close to the target, but while the spirit of their heroes is what drives these wheels, there is more than simple Tool-worship fueling these tanks. The three 10-minute epics that form the backbone of the album have more than enough nuance, shonky time signatures and that bass sound to satisfy the prog acolytes out there, but it’s the hearty big budget grunge riffs peppering the album that raise Moving Backwards above mere pastiche. Hulking great off-cuts from the likes of Soundgarden, Seether and defunct Brit rockers Romans pop up at unexpected moments like lank-haired, plaid-wearing Whack-A-Moles, bursts of power that create instant earworms out of the like of Wheel or Where The Pieces Lie. Like some glorious jam session between Karnivool and Kadaver, Moving Backwards achieves the unimaginable, or for some the unforgivable, and manages to somehow makes prog metal immediate, so if Periphery are too whimsical and Alice in Chains too straightforward, then hitch yourself to this Wheel.

Moving Backwards is out 22 February via Odyssey Music Network

Wheel play the Islington Academy in London on 25 March as part of a European tour with Soen