Warhammer - Curse Of The Absolute Eclipse - [Nuclear Blast]

2002-10-31

The Year: 2002. A band titled “Warhammer”, a dedicated batch of anachronistic “Helhammer” followers, releases their fourth album, containing a bundle of 12 tracks, bringing the dedicated application of their idols’ principles to a nearly-absolute cloning perfection.

I regret to say that the previous paragraph does not describe the occurence of an imaginary artistic-creation holocaust. No, it is not a mere joke, nor a clever cynical subtlety. Indeed, legendary “Hellhammer” still exists, not only in the hearts and minds of dedicated fans, but also embodied In the shape of a nowadays active band.

I find this phenomenon saddening and preposterous. As the educated Metal fan most probably knows, Hellhammer is a pre-Celtic Frost band. Meaning, as early as 1984, the time of the latter band’s foundation, its members had reached the conclusion that their primitive hellish Thrash Metal is plainly a transitional stage, and moved on in order to progress and create a mature, ripe reincarnation of their previous ideas. Regardless of this notion, Warhammer choose to stick to an approach which seemed outdated even to the oldest-school band, over 15 years ago. Like a full evolved butterfly refusing to spread its colorful wings, prefering to stick to its crumbling chrysalis; like a grown man insisting on mobilizing himself by a baby’s crawl instead of walking, this band despitefully abolishes 15 years of progression, declaring the legitimation of a current representation of a pre-historical era.

Actually, the innocent reader might reach the conclusion that Warhammer’s chosen path isn’t necessarily negative. Many great musical creations were issued in the past, and a repetition of their surpreme sublimeness will be more than pleasing. Who will refuse another “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”, or “Dance of December Souls”. Still, it must be emphasized that the output of Warhammer contains no interesting or challenging element whatsoever. By immitating so influential yet simple musical essence, they repeat the same compositional movements featured thousands of times in the last 20 years, by the original seminal bands, and each and every follower of them, who gather, in an increased or lesser level, to a great part of the overall past Metal creation, summing up to an unperceptable amount of acts. By absteining any furhter innovative additions, Warhammer features nothing more than a dull, uninteresting simplification of the Trash Metal framework. Ignore.

Tom Orgad