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This band call themselves a “cult act”, and if by this they mean the music is for a very select audience then it is easy to agree. It is obvious from the start that on this album they have gone for a very dirty, raw approach – both in the production and the playing – but this should not be an excuse for a lack of structure or ideas. Unfortunately, by the end of this album I was left pretty unsatisfied. After the noisy, over-long intro track I was hoping for some evil, blackened thrash but with some definition and interesting riffs at the same time. This album certainly satisfies my hopes for the ‘evil, blackened’ sound, but unfortunately most of the tracks lack any interest beyond this. The songs are usually short and simplistic, but where other bands in the past like Motorhead and Venom managed to pull of this approach, most of Ammit’s material seems to take it too far, so that the riffs are either too repetitive or just too basic to be interesting. This isn’t to say that the songs lack any aspects that make them enjoyable, but all too often it seems that these are either too short or too overshadowed by the poor production or the vocals, which I find get a bit irritating.
Some tracks like Wrath and Black Plague offer a nice dose of old school thrash, with a bit more substance to the rhythm guitars and a good pace set by the drumming, but these moments don’t really outbalance the bulk of the album’s lack of punch. The cover of Accept’s Fast as a Shark is another solid moment, but overall I can’t really place this album very highly, and although I might be putting myself amongst the “ignorant scene and incompetent zine editors” who criticized the band in the past (according to their biography), I can’t deny I’d rather hear something with more distinct riffs and a more powerful production to match. Bands like Sodom and Possessed have shown that a dark, raw approach can be achieved while still maintaining an original angle, but with Hammer of Darkness I am left hungry for good riffs and good structures, which surely shows this hasn’t been achieved.
| Tracklist |
| 1. Pure Infernal Fire |
| 2. Power Means Death Power |
| 3. Acid |
| 4. Fast As A shark [Accept cover] |
| 5. Dogs Of Hell |
| 6. Sinner |
| 7. Terrormass |
| 8. Wrath |
| 9. Black Plagues |
| 10. Genocide |
| 11. Las Garras Del Mal |
| 12. Hammer Of Darkness |
: 38.54
| Buy other Ammit albums |
