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Sigrid Sheie

Monday, August 7: Vhöl, “The Desolate Damned”

Hammers of Misfortune: Dead Revolution (2016)

Hammers of Misfortune's sixth studio album, Dead Revolution, arrived not quite ten years ago and all of five after its predecessor, 17th Street, because, well, life just "kept getting in the way" of the band's professional plans.

On the positive side of the spectrum, band leader/guitarist John Cobbett and wife/keyboardist Sigrid Sheie welcomed their first child and released an album with avant-thrashers Vhöl, adding yet another impressive collaboration to their ever-growing legacies.

On the negative side of things, longtime drummer Chewy Marzolo had finally had enough and followed classic line-up members Mike Scalzi and Jamie Myers out the door, while then-current vocalist Joel Hutton survived a serious motorcycle accident!

But Cobbett, Sheie, and Hutton duly reconvened with guitarist Leila Abdul-Rauf, bassist Paul Walker, and drummer Will Carrol (also of Death Angel and Vicious Rumors) to record arguably HoM's most musically accessible effort in Dead Revolution.

Mind you, I said "musically," not "lyrically," because HoM's words are as rich, evocative, and difficult to decipher as ever, which is just as well since, like 2011's 17th Street, they carry on about the very "un-metal" subject of gentrification in the band's home base of San Francisco.

"Up the irons, I mean the housing costs, taxes, and rents!"

Don't worry, though, because most everything feels OK once the band march into the majestic metal of "Sea of Heroes," gallop into the title track's N.W.O.B.H.M. staccatos, and get contemplative on "Here Comes the Sky," which surprisingly concludes with mournful mariachi horns.

I say "most" because the CD track sequence doesn't match the vinyl pressing (re-shuffled to fit evenly on both sides) and you may feel even more lost than usual following the lyrics, until you reach my personal standout, "Flying Alone."

Simply put, this is a frantic, fantastic modern spin on Deep Purple (think a post-thrash "Highway Star"), complete with Jon Lord-like Hammond organ from Sheie and a solo that flies in tandem with Cobbett's that's pure Ritchie Blackmore tribute.

Side two houses three mini-epics in "The Velvet Inquisition" (a vintage HoM prog metal excursion), "The Precipice (Waiting for the Crash …)" (hang in there until the glorious closing guitar harmonies), and "Days of '49" (an old-time folk ballad about the California Gold Rush, previously covered by Bob Dylan and Fairport Convention, among others).

In case this isn't obvious, the latter was chosen by Cobbett and Sheie to serve as a de facto requiem (albeit an overlong, rather dull one, at that) for the gentrified City by the Bay, which the couple apparently abandoned around this time, bound for Montana, I believe.

But I hope they didn't forget to TAKE some flowers for their hair on the way out!

More importantly, though it rocked their formation yet again, at least their diaspora didn't spell the end of Hammers of Misfortune, which returned in 2022 with the excellent Overtaker LP, and, better yet, a partial reunion with their old bandmates, Scalzi and Myers.

As I write this, I can't guess for sure as t whether we'll hear from the band again, but something tells me we will, and I sure do hope so.

Vhol - Vhol (Gilead Media, 2013)