Sledgehammer

“…walking home alone I couldn’t believe my eyes…”

Usually a self-financed 7” single released four years prior to a band’s debut lp could be called humble beginnings, but since the UK act’s full-length career starts up and shuts off with Blood on Their Hands and some errant singles…well, you get the gist.

Originally recorded (the same day as the Southall riots, as rumor suggests) and pressed independently some time in mid-’79, the Sledgehammer single is half the self-titled semi-sandy hard rock a-side performed actually slightly lighter, but less formulaic than the likes of Gamma, Blackfoot, Poobah, and Rick Derringer, all more or less second tier bullies of the time and in reality resembles more bantamweight New England, Trooper, and Runner minus their complimentary production values. The other half, the b-side “Feel Good” (or “Feelgood” depending on which version you’re lookin’ at), is a barely rockin’, soft-hearted, Talking Heads-esque tiptoe that only has any known hardness thrown at it when a baritone solo struggles up the basement stairs toward the middle-end.

Needless to say, getting whatever airtime was available for this 7” could only be “Sledgehammer”, a weirdly-interesting oddball with a loose-fitting amateur quality that sounds as if it drove in from one of rock’s side roads where structure and musicianship is less rigid and affixed and more custom and ‘live’ in an organic sense, meanwhile a faintly off-beat chorus does little to align the song’s irregular motion that helps make it the lovable ‘lil thing it is. It’ll also be a main attraction on their aforementioned future debut, but it’d be stupidly difficult to discern this since no song titles appear on its jacket.

The title track would gain more traction as a metal specimen when it’s featured on the 1980 Metal for Muthas compilation from EMI Records.

Fun fact 081d: When Valiant Records repressed the thing the following year and gave it a sleeve, the back cover features quotes from mid-‘79 Sounds Magazine writer Geoff Barton (name’s unfamiliar? Get in line for a smack) saying “Sledgehammer – the equivalent of several blows on the cranium with a large mallet…” and same time Sounds staffer Gary Bushell declaring “…now if all HM was like this…”.

Those were the days.