I guess it was inevitable. In 2022, the most prominent trend in the metal world is to look to the past and mine established styles to see if some new energy can be harnessed from those long-buried fossils.
At this point, old-school death metal and raw black metal have been so thoroughly excavated that they might be reaching a point of staleness yet again. And so industrial metal is having a bit of a moment. I’m not saying this is part of some plan laid out by the likes of Doom Hammer, but it does situate them as an interesting example of this phenomenon.
Regardless of how you feel about Doom Hammer, there’s no denying the group knows how to pull off hard-hitting death metal. Their first single “Extreme Rage” was released on Youtube in late May.
This week I had the opportunity to let the Mexico-based band’s beautiful guitar harmonies and journeyman heavy, speed, thrash metal soothe my heart. Inspired by bands like Iron Reagan Violator Mötley Crüe and Skull Fist the band brings to the table loud screamo vocals and Mexican death metal.
This is not music to dance to. This is foreboding ambiance pushed to the Nth degree, an oppressively moody background sonata that wouldn’t feel out of place in a modern-styled conceptual horror flick. It pushes at your senses in an invasive way (especially if you’ve got it cranked up on a high bass speaker, then it starts to get physically invasive as well).
“Doom Hammer was created out of an existential need in which we want to express our music Rodó Valenzuela Founder/leader/drummer of the group started the protection based on wanting to make music to express his feelings,” the group explains.
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Usually metal is a type of music that lets people set free and fully express their emotions – typically all coming from an angry or sad place. And that’s exactly what they do. At this time it feels that no one really listens to metal, however, as Doom Hammer grows they continue to recruit fans, showing them what metal is all about.
“Extreme Rage” is truly a song to blast on full volume, to captive its entirety from loud fast vocals to brilliant guitar solos. It’s fast, it’s intense, it’s doom. Chaotic at times, the song still pulls off nicely. Extreme rage runs through everyone’s veins as we indulge in this head-banger of a song.
