Master's hammer
| Master's hammer | |
|---|---|
 |
|
 Master's Hammer (2018) |
|
| General information | |
| origin | Prague , Czech Republic |
| Genre (s) | Black metal , experimental music |
| founding | 1987, 2009 |
| resolution | 2003 |
| Website | www.mastershammer.com |
| Founding members | |
| František Štorm | |
| Milan Fibiger | |
| Ferenc Fečo | |
| Current occupation | |
Vocals, guitar |
František Štorm |
Keyboard |
Vlasta Voral |
guitar |
Tomáš “Necrocock” Kohout |
Drums |
Honza Kapák |
Percussion |
Jan “Silenthell” Přibyl |
| former members | |
Percussion |
Ulric "Fox" Liška |
bass |
Tomáš "Monster" Vendl |
guitar |
Milan Křovina |
Drums |
Karel Zastra |
bass |
Jindra Sklenar |
Drums |
Mirek Valenta |
Master's Hammer is a Czech black metal band from Prague .
history
Band foundation and first publications
The band was founded in 1987 by students of the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague under the influence of publications by bands such as Manowar or Metallica . But already the first demo recorded in 1987, The Ritual Murder , showed clear influences from the first wave of Black Metal , especially Bathory . Although the band had an English name and the demo an English title, the lyrics were in Czech . The music came from the duo Fibiger / Štorm, the lyrics from the pen of František Štorm , who also used some Latin phrases. In 1988 and 1989 the demos Finished and The Mass followed . When the rhythm section was completely replaced in 1990, the band's musical development stalled until the line-up for the demo The Fall of Idol was complete with 18-year-old bassist Jindra "Monster" Sklenar and 17-year-old drummer Valenta Švarce .
In the meantime, the band had gained a good reputation in the Czech metal scene through a lot of live performances . Benefiting from the Velvet Revolution at the end of 1989 and the fall of the Iron Curtain , the band was now also noticed outside of their home country. In 1991 keyboardist Vlasta Voral joined the band, and it was with this line-up that the debut album Ritual was recorded. It was published by Monitor at the end of the year and has proven to be extremely successful with around 30,000 copies sold. Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell from the Norwegian band Darkthrone describes Ritual , knowing about the Czech origins of the band, as the first Norwegian black metal album.
The Jilemnice Occultist
The band's creative highlight was Jilemnický Okultista , conceived as a “black metal operetta in three acts” , which the band recorded in 1992 as a demo in an edition of 1,000 at their own expense and which earned them a contract with Osmose Productions . The label released the album in a re-recorded version under the title The Jilemnice Occultist .
This album is a concept album with a self-contained story about a village in Bohemia, in which the inhabitants meet regularly for occult rituals until the forces of order put an end to the occult hustle and bustle. The lyrics are in Czech. The style of the album is called "orchestral", but it is far less melodic or epic than the style of later symphonic extreme metal bands like Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir . The line-up includes a timpanist whose timpani has a permanent place in the sound of the band. The guitar playing on this album is mainly based on Black Metal of the first wave. Only the unbelievable turn of the story and the triggered-looking drums were criticized negatively. The Jilemnice Occultist is considered the musical highlight of the band, but was far less financially successful.
Šlágry and dissolution of the band
In 1995 four members left the band and only František Štorm and Vlasta Voral remain. The two musicians concentrated more on the work in their own "ivory studio" and no longer appeared as a live band. It was released in 1996 by Šlágry , which broke with the symphonic black metal of previous releases and turned towards electronic music . Various sampler contributions and demo singles followed in the next few years, which were largely ignored, so that in 2003 the remaining members declared Master's Hammer to be over for good.
reunion
In 2009 Jilemnický Okultista was named together with Ritual by Nuclear War Now! Republished Productions ; the band itself was not involved in the re-release and calls it a bootleg on mastershammer.com. Yosuke Konishi from Nuclear War Now! Productions assured in the forum of his label that they had released the LPs with the permission of Osmose Productions. In December 2009 the band released a new album called Mantras . The band has been releasing their records on the band's own label Jihosound since 2013 .
In an interview in 2010 the band ruled out future live appearances, but has been playing live again since 2017, so u. a. at Party.San 2018.
Texts and ideology
The band deals with occult topics typical of black metal and dedicated the song Útok from the debut album Ritual to Anton Szandor LaVey . When rock-hard editor Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann got the impression that the band was dealing with the subject in a humorous way, Štorm replied:
“Humor is a vitamin for health. But we take the heart of the matter very seriously. We don't like to pretend and copy something. We sing about honest feelings and all lyrics have a serious background. "
meaning
Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth von Mayhem expressed to Bård “Faust” Eithun's fanzine Orcustus in 1992 an interest in a future collaboration between his label Deathlike Silence Productions and Master's Hammer, which never happened. Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell from Darkthrone, Per “Hellbutcher” Gustavsson from Nifelheim or Adam “Nergal” Darski from Behemoth are among their favorite bands. Behemoth covered the piece Jama Pekel on the EP Ezkaton , released in 2008 . Dolk, singer from Kampfar , said in an interview that Master's Hammer was one of the bands that brought him in connection with Black Metal, Alan "Naihmass Nemtheanga" Averill from Primordial counted the band as one of his sources of inspiration. Also Grand Belial's Key included the music of Master's Hammer to their influences.
The band is considered to be "a veteran of Black Metal" and is "one of the most eccentric representatives" of it in the early 1990s, but only became more popular in the late 2000s. The Rock Hard one ritual among the "250 black metal albums, should know the man" and The Jilemnice Occultist of the 25 most important black metal albums.
Discography
- The Ritual Murder (Demo 1987)
- Finished (Demo 1988)
- The Mass (demo 1989)
- Live in Zbraslav (Livetape 1989)
- The Fall of Idol (demo 1990)
- Ritual (1991, Monitor; Re-released 1994 by Osmose Productions)
- Piano piece (1991, EP, Poserslaughter)
- Jilemnický Okultista (demo 1992)
- The Jilemnice Occultist (1992, Osmose Productions)
- Šlágry (1996, Kron-H)
- Mantras (2009, in-house production)
- Vracejte konve na místo (2012, in-house production)
- Transgalaktický řezník / Barva kosmu (single, 2012, in-house production)
- BLMH 7 "split SP 2013 (Split with Blackosh, 2013, Jihosound)
- BLMH 7 "split SP 2014 (Split with Blackosh, 2014, Jihosound)
- Vagus Vetus (2014, Jihosound)
- Formulæ (2016, Jihosound)
- Fascinator (2018, Jihosound)
literature
- Holger Stratmann (Ed.): RockHard Encyclopedia . RockHard-Verlag, Dortmund 1998, ISBN 3-9805171-0-1 , p. 238 .
Web links
- Official website
- Master's Hammer at Allmusic (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Fenriz : DARKTHRONE BIOGRAPHY AND VIDEO CLIPS. November 21, 2009, archived from the original on November 26, 2009 ; accessed on February 21, 2020 (English).
- ↑ history . Retrieved January 22, 2010 (Czech).
- ↑ a b Master’s Hammer - The Jilemnice Occultist (Osmose Prod., 1992) .
- ↑ a b c Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann: Blue in Bohemia . In: Rock Hard . No. 274 , March 2010, p. 64 .
- ↑ Interview with Euronymous (Mayhem) in Bård “Faust” Eithuns Orcustus
- ↑ Christine Carney: DARKTHRONE INTERVIEW 2005. Metal Nightmare, archived from the original on March 30, 2008 ; Retrieved September 6, 2009 .
- ↑ Nifelheim. Mourning the Ancient Webzine, accessed September 6, 2009 .
- ↑ Markus Jakob: Interview with Nergal from Behemoth. metalnews.de, October 18, 2008, accessed September 6, 2009 .
- ↑ Geork: Kampfar interview with Dolk. vampster , July 22, 1999, accessed September 6, 2009 .
- ↑ PRIMORDIAL. (No longer available online.) Metal-district.de, archived from the original on September 19, 2009 ; Retrieved September 6, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Grand Belial's Key Interview .
- ↑ MASTER'S HAMMER "Mantras". (No longer available online.) December 3, 2009, archived from the original on January 30, 2010 ; Retrieved April 20, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ 250 Black Metal Albums That You Should Know . In: Rock Hard , No. 269, October 2009, p. 75.
- ↑ The 25 Most Important Black Metal Albums Of All Time . In: Rock Hard , No. 269, October 2009, p. 94.
