Thor's hammer
| Thor's hammer | |
|---|---|
 Runhild Gammelsæter performing in Birmingham, 2009. |
|
| General information | |
| origin |
 United States Ballard , Washington |
| Genre (s) | Death Doom |
| founding | 1994, 2009 |
| resolution | 1995 |
| Website | myspace.com/thorr39shammer |
| Founding members | |
| Greg Anderson | |
guitar |
Stephen O'Malley |
| Current occupation | |
| Runhild Gammelsæter | |
guitar |
Greg Anderson |
guitar |
Stephen O'Malley |
| Guy Pinhas | |
Drums |
Jamie Sykes |
| former members | |
bass |
James Hale (1994-1995) |
Thorr's Hammer is an American death doom band. Thorr's Hammer was the first successful band of Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley and as such was decisive for the formation of the band Burning Witch and the label Southern Lord .
history
The band was founded in the winter of 1994/1995 by the two guitarists Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley in Ballard , Washington . Within a short time the then seventeen year old Norwegian exchange student Runhild Gammelsæter joined them as singer, Jamie Sykes as drummer and James Hale as bassist. The band was only active for six weeks after it was founded, during which time they played two concerts and recorded the demo tape Sannhet i Blodet and the three-song EP Dommedagsnatt . After Runhild Gammelsæter returned to her homeland, the band broke up and immediately laid the foundation for the formation of Burning Witch by O'Malley, Anderson and Sykes. The recording of the EP Dommedagsnatt , meanwhile, contributed to the founding of the Southern Lord label by O'Malley and Anderson, whose first release in 1998 was to be the EP that had previously only been available on cassette . For the re-release in 1998, the EP was expanded to include the live piece Mellom Galgene .
In 2009 the band played a reunion concert at the Supersonic Festival in Birmingham, with Guy Pinhas as the new bass player. In the same year, Gammelsæter was positive about the possibility of further releases from Thorr's Hammer. More isolated concerts and festival appearances followed, including at the Roadburn Festival , where the band also presented the new song Aasgaardsiegen .
style
The style of the band is shaped by the Norwegian language, in which Runhild Gammelsæter writes all lyrics, the deathgrowls with which she performs them, and the extremely slow and heavily distorted riffing . Contrary to the majority of the known songs, the vocals in Norge , the opening track of the EP, still alternate between clear vocals and growling.
Discography
- 1995: Sannhet i Blodet (Demo, MC , self-published)
- 1996: Dommedagsnatt (EP, MC, Moribund Records; re-releases: CD / LP , Southern Lord )
- 2010: Only Death Is Real (concert album, LP, Southern Lord)
Web links
- Thorr's Hammer at Allmusic (English)
- Thorr's Hammer at Discogs (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Liner Notes from the Dommedagsnatt booklet
- ↑ a b Band biography on Runhild Gammelsæter's website
- ↑ Interview with Anderson on diskant.net
- ↑ Steve Dollar: Bringing the Heavy Back to Metal. at: nysun.com
- ↑ Thor's Hammer. Southern Lord, archived from the original on December 2, 2008 ; Retrieved October 7, 2013 .
- ↑ Review of Dommedagsnatt on Metal-Observer.de