Well their name certainly matches their music, I imagine it
would be very difficult to play an instrument with hammers for hands. I would
expect lots of chugging and pounding and for that Hammerhands definitely
delivers. For the most part "Glaciers" sound is comprised drone and
chugging guitars. The music plods along with your typical sludge metal
shouting. Personally I have never cared for the vocal style and find it incredibly
boring, this in combination with the slow chugging music does not provide much interest
and I wound up losing focus on the music very easily and it just became
background noise for me while I was drawing. The first two tracks of the album
were so similar that I did not even notice the song had changed. With the
exception of the title track I found very little about the album that I
actually enjoyed. And to cap it off the album ends with a 30 minute track
titled "Equus" that for the most part is an atmospheric instrumental
piece.
Now I can dig lengthy atmospheric tracks as long as the
music/sound is composed well enough that tells some sort of story. But
"Equus" is just a lengthy drone track that lacks focus and just
becomes noise. About half way through it starts to remind me of the untitled
track off Gigan's album "The Order of the False Eye" the key difference
being that track had a more compelling atmosphere and at least felt organized
like a song even if it was just an unrehearsed jam session. “Equus”, though very similar falls short of
telling a compelling story and crosses the border into just being noise.
All is not a waste though, as I mentioned earlier the one
song that stood out was the title track which had a more melancholic tone and a
bit more musical interest. It has just enough variety and atmosphere to make
the song enjoyable. This at least shows that there may actually be a future for
HammerHands and after they gain some more experience they will possibly be able
to produce a more competent album.
(I give "Glaciers" a 5 out of 10)
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