Label: Napalm Records
Release date: 2/25/2022
Production: Fredrik Nordström
Album length: 45.50 min
Genre: Power Metal
Rating: 8.5/10
HammerFall are back with a new album, »Hammer Of Dawn«. What a wake-up call of a title! Let’s be honest, HammerFall were never at home writing dark, gloomy music. Even when they tried it, remember »Infected (2011)«, it did them more harm than good.
»Hammer Of Dawn« doesn’t bring any new discoveries. Not for the band, not for their followers. What it does bring is one of the more interesting and successful albums since 2009’s »No Sacrifice, No Victory«. The band had tried to recapture that spirit of digging into the character of their first era, when the cult-status first four albums came out, before, but this time they pulled it off most convincingly with the latest record, »Hammer Of Dawn«. Its predecessor »Dominion« from 2019 (RockLine review) at times showed quite a bit of creative impoverishment. It felt like the band couldn’t squeeze out an album that would hold a sufficient minimum of quality consistency through the newly written material, which is what you need to keep the listener hooked (from the start to the end of any album).
Well, it seems that for HammerFall the axiom “keep it simple” has finally found its true embodiment with their twelfth studio album, »Hammer Of Dawn«. The series of seriously seductive anthemic marches that the band, and the new album, hammer out is enviable and appealing on every level, start to finish. It brings to mind the first decade of their career, when HammerFall fired off most of the ideas they’re still the most respected and revered for in the power metal world. The opener Brotherhood is a track that grabs your attention right away. It feels nostalgic. A riff HammerFall have already written, only repackaged and “slightly twisted”. If you think this is one of those four or five sufficiently interesting “recycled” songs placed up front to grab your attention because the rest of the material waters down, you’ve got another thing coming.
The band keeps a high artistic consistency across the entire running time. There’s no ballad on the album trying to chase the charisma of the elusive Glory To The Brave. The only slower number this time is Not Today, which opens with a phrase and a guitar motif inspired by the figure and work of Accept, but then develops in a typically “HammerFall-ish” way and doesn’t try to ride on the band’s cult ballad mentioned a moment ago. The album sets out to appeal to nostalgia, and it does so convincingly. No surprise that HammerFall are at their best exactly when their new songs recall their first period. Ironic enough, but that’s how it is. Especially when you cling to a musical formula where everything is said quickly and the very same recipe doesn’t leave you much room to maneuver for potentially trying out the untried.
Let’s be honest, it’s a good thing it’s this way. Fans of the band will be more than thrilled this time, because over these (just under) 46 minutes of new music HammerFall are incredibly convincing at “imitating themselves” from the era of the first (four to five) albums. That goes for the excellent title track with its classic rhythmic heavy metal march, which No Son Of Odin, right behind it, matches in bombast, then the bristling, speedy Live Free Or Die, the closing No Mercy shrapnel, the dramatic yet insanely invasive-to-the-ear Venerate Me (with guest King Diamond), as well as for yet another epic march, State Of The W.I.L.D., which sets up the real springboard before the finish so that the album unravels with the closing No Mercy in the manner of high-octane “frying” that unleashes the primal atmospheric voltage of power metal orthodoxy.
So, as said. HammerFall managed to recycle their formula from the first era brilliantly. They’re one of those bands that are best off going about it this way, because that’s when they’re most convincing. Pontus Norgren remains a fascinating guitar wizard, and a story of his own within HammerFall. His solos are once again a first-class treat. Guitar phrases grab one after another, the rhythm section is penetrating and seductive under the skin, and Joacim Cans delivers a vocal performance as if 25 years hadn’t passed since the release of the debut »Glory To The Brave«. Praiseworthy work, boys.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Brotherhood
2. Hammer Of Dawn
3. No Son Of Odin
4. Venerate Me
5. Reveries
6. Too Old To Die Young
7. Not Today
8. Live Free Or Die
9. State Of The W.I.L.D.
10. No Mercy
Line-up:
Joacim Cans – vocals
Oscar Dronjak – guitar
Pontus Norgren – guitar
Fredrik Larsson – bass
David Wallin – drums
Guest musicians:
King Diamond – vocals on track no. 4
