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Grand Magus: Hammer of the north

06/08/10 || GardensTale

This is it. This is the album that will finally make your ballsack spontaneously grow a motherfucken afro full of hair. This will give you the ability to chop down buildings with your cock. You will be able to generate axes out of thin air that can chop mountains in half. Your voice will from now on be a frighteningly deep rumble with a cigar-hoarseness even if you have never caught a whiff of tobacco. You can roundhouse kick satellites out of space and spit on the sun. It is my belief this album has enough manliness to make any unborn baby turn male, China rejoice. Men will roar in wild abandon, women will either cower in fear, turn lesbian lumberjackers or attempt to seduce any random man despite their unworthiness, just so they could give birth to more men.

All you need to do is listen to the first two songs to hear what I am talking about. “I, the jury” is, impossible as I thought it was, even better than their previously best song “Kingslayer”. It rumbles like a freight train, while JB shows off his incredible range with a few well-placed screams, and hammers more adrenaline into your bones as he roars that he is, in fact, the motherfucken LAW. Then “Hammer of the North” kicks in, and it’s a track that hits slower but harder, with a riff so headbangable it’s gonna decapitate those with untrained necks. It’s gonna be a hoot at concerts too, because every single person in the audience will want to shout along: HAMMER OF THE NOOOOOORTH!

The production deserves extra mention. Bass, as we all know, has been snowed under far too often, but it’s very prominent and very, very badass on this disc. It has a sound that can only be described as “phat”, bad spelling and all. Everything else is balanced perfectly, from the roaring guitars, piercing solos, JB’s voice so masculine he could yell at a tree to chop it down, to the steadily beating drums. It’s fucken perfection.

Not every track is a feast, sadly. “Lord of lies” is lacklustre and doesn’t have the punch the other tracks do, and “Savage tales” isn’t spectacular. But the opening tracks, the ominous “Black sails” with its off-kilter structure, the mighty “Mountains be my throne”, the in-your-face “Northern star”, and… well, you get the point. Fucken, fucken, fucken awesome.

Grand Magus had sort of flown under the radar with their earlier albums, but got a sleeper hit in when they changed from stoner doom to full-fledged 70’s heavy metal with balls the size of pumpkins with the riff-fest “Iron will”. If I had to pinpoint one thing wrong with that awesome, awesome album, it would be the fact that it wasn’t as diverse as it could have been. That complaint cannot be made for “Hammer of the north”, plus everything, from the production to the songwriting, has been cranked up a notch to boot. I highly doubt any heavy metal album is going to even get close this year, let alone surpass it, and it’s a high contender for Album of the Year for me.

Now go pick it up, listen to it, and cum Tabasco sauce.

9,5

Information
Released: 2010
Label: Roadrunner Records
Website: www.grandmagus.com
Band
JB: vocals, guitar
Fox Skinner: bass
Seb: drums

Tracklist
01. I, the jury
02. Hammer of the north
03. Black sails
04. Mountains be my throne
05. Northern star
06. Lord of lies
07. At midnight they’ll get wise
08. Bond of blood
09. Savage tales
10. Ravens guide our way

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