Deathhammer is the retro thrash/speed metal band of several members or Ghoul-Cult, or at least they perform live with that band. After three demos, they have released their first full-length of rugged and raw, crispy thrashing mayhem. Some of the tracks are culled from their demos, and there exists a few levels of production on the album, though the style is consistent throughout. If you recall the cover to the Darkthrone album F.O.A.D., the mascot character had a Deathhammer patch on his jacket.
Not a lot of creativity on this, mostly just worship of the past. Bands like Kreator, Razor, Possessed and Venom come to mind, but if you just shut your mind off it's not difficult to enjoy. The song titles are the usual suspects, "Toxic Radiation", "Total Thrash Assault", "Evil Blood", "Tormentor", "Demonz in Leather", "Possessed" and so forth. I found some of the faster and more vile tracks like "Unholy Sacrifice" and "Doomed to Eternal Hellfire" to be the pick of the litter here.
The album is recorded like it was 1982 all over again, very raw style that will appeal to the sort of retro crowd that makes albums like this in the first place. Guitars are crisp and fast, drums are tinny and a little low, the vocals of Sergeant Salsten are probably the true highlight here with their wild highs, recalling any crazy ass English-second-language vocalist of that 80s era. It's the kind of album you might want to put on for fun sometimes, but you might also ask yourself why you're not just listening to the actually bands they are emulating. Still, Deathhammer doesn't do a poor job of this, I would just rather hear more bands taking that influence and moving it forward with better lyrics and ambitions other than to just copy the past (this is a common complaint I have against such releases, you may have noticed).
Verdict: Indifference [6/10]
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