Herzinfarkt

Hardholz are a heavy metal band that formed over twenty-five years ago in Germany and other than a full-length album released in the nineties, this is their sole other full-length effort. This album was a particularly puzzling enigma to me as I found it very difficult to compare it to other artists in the genre. This is primarily because the sound is just hard too categorise easily. The overall sound is gruff and gritty with a rhythm section combined of thudding chugs and elaborate bass work. On top of that you have the vocalist's harsh and phlegmy delivery, which is somehow especially appropriate since he sings in his native German tongue. All this sounds like it might be pretty cool until you combine in some slower melodic sections, sometimes even with vocal harmonies and the result is, well, different.

I found it hard to latch onto much from this album, and I think the reasons for that are that the vocal hooks are scarce and the rhythm guitar plays a lot more chugs than riffs. I like the vocals a lot, but that kind of throaty delivery needs more than some power chords backing it up. It needs some riffs to go with it to give them something to launch off of. There are obvious exceptions here. The highlight track for me was “Wieland, des Schmied” which has a fantastic set of riffs underlying the vocals and supporting the creative work. “Bonusdreck” also has a strong set of riffs, but is just an instrumental track and so it doesn't have the same feel without those German pipes behind it. “Hartholz” was another track with a strong opening as it has a really strong Motörhead vibe to it, but the interest seemed to wane as soon the rest of the song came along.

In the final analysis, the problem with this album is simply that it fails to deliver anything memorable. The instrumental prowess of the members is undeniably good. The lead playing is creative and the bass lines are, as I have already mentioned, solid in their own right. But the final package is for the most part, completely forgettable. When listening closely to certain parts and pondering the structure of the compositions, I found some places where some interesting things were being done, but as soon the musical phrase in study had passed, the rest of the music just transitioned back into audio wallpaper.

I imagine this style of music could be enjoyed by a great many people, but for me, my metal needs to have riffs. And the more the better, really. It's a shame that with so many proper ingredients to a good sound, they still couldn't pull off anything noteworthy for me.

Originally written for The Metal Observer.