Stop! Hammertime!

The debut full-length album by Dutch band Sledgehammer Nosejob has cover design and smug album title which are extremely successful in their sheer brazenness. Caught in "Stop! Hammertime!" hitting range, you are preparing to take a sharp, just like the first kill in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", blow to your eardrums, but when suddenly you are met with death'n'roll in the spirit of "Soul Survivor" in the song "Sledgehammer Bitch", seemingly not intended for this genre if judging by its title, one may find themselves more confused than in pain and wonder: is this the right disk I downloaded? Is there no mistake truly? Continuing to explore the album, we can notice a great number of different styles and unexpected semi-subtle references in the music: besides the first four death'n'roll tracks in the spirit of Illdisposed, we can notice a silly parody of early rock'n'roll in a song "Psycho Rocker", pure thrash piece "Chainsaw Hank", and the final slow and suffocating epic "1347 Black Death", in which the band suddenly, judging by their own admission, added elements of crust-punk. The musicians themselves did dodge the question about the album's genre, but the label itself prefers to call the release death'n'roll, considering the fact that the band had a cover of ZZ Top (and later they also paid tribute to AC/DC) already in their catalogue. It's the whole range of emotions and musical forms that the band has stuffed into this package what makes the album extremely interesting to explore, although imagining such an album written and recorded in one specific style, I can predict that for some listeners it would seem very boring. But for me sometimes it even seems that the album could add one more song.

In terms of sound we can say that the work is definitely not flawless. In some places I can yell small complaints 'bout the sound of guitars towards the band, but the guitarist responsible for all creative songwriting, the leader of the band Massive Assault - Fredde Caddeth - does not disappoint with general riffing. The guitar work here is a solid four out of five. Vocalist Carl 'Assault' Christian Dusselje, who, for instance, participated in the reunion of Phlebotomized, reminds of Dave Ingram from Benediction, especially in the more obtuse and raw parts of the album. As for the sound of Marco Plij's drums, it's a bit deaf-toned, for my taste. Strangely enough there is no cool collaborations. Only Asphyx bassist Alwin Zuur is among the notable sessionists here, but he made his mark only on the track "Barcoded Ordered Sold Packed And Shipped", which I found to be the least interesting and unworthy of attention on the album.

I definitely recommend this first and yet only Sledgehammer Nosejob record as, at least, just a record which is curious to check, but which is not pretending to offer some never-seen-before ideological creativity. Its heterogeneity and unburdening length of 33 minutes makes the album suitable for few relaxed listenings for leisure. That is a huge pity that somehow we haven't heard anything new from the band since 2020. I would have checked the second album with huge curiosity, this time expecting a non-boring death metal with a thin barely notable string of death'n'roll going through the entire thingy.

Originally written for https://www.darkside.ru/album/54480/