{"id":75416,"date":"2018-01-08T13:00:06","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T19:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/?p=75416"},"modified":"2018-01-08T13:08:57","modified_gmt":"2018-01-08T19:08:57","slug":"revisiting-masters-hammer-slagry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/revisiting-masters-hammer-slagry\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting a Truly Unique Album: Master&#8217;s Hammer &#8211; Slagry"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>A look back at 1995&#8217;s nightmarish combination of classical music and black metal.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It was the middle of November, and I had once again made the mistake of participating in NaNoWriMo. Having fallen pretty behind on my word count, I went to a coffee shop, set down my laptop, ordered an overpriced cup of coffee, and promptly looked up black metal recommendations. I had to get myself in the mood, after all.\u00a0 One of the lists I found placed <em>Jilemnick\u00fd Okultista<\/em> by <strong>Master\u2019s Hammer<\/strong> pretty highly, citing an experimental style far ahead of its time for a 1992 black metal album.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_99432\"  width=\"320\" height=\"240\"  data-origwidth=\"320\" data-origheight=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hEwY3FC59YE?enablejsapi=1&#038;list=PLQzIQRHkAamw0zUnmwCjgHOWA11RAW3Ag&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Turns out Master\u2019s Hammer is a pretty big deal, with influence that trickles down through many of the big names in black metal. Fenriz purportedly half-jokingly called their album, <em>Ritual<\/em>, the first Norwegian black metal album, despite the band being Czech (he apparently said this on a MySpace post, but it\u2019s no longer in existence and not on the Way Back Machine because it\u2019s fucking MySpace), and still names them as one of the progenitors of the black metal sound before the Norwegian scene became more unified in musical styles. The frontman of Master\u2019s Hammer, \u0160torm, has strong ties to the legendary Czech black metal band <strong>Root<\/strong>, designing the typography for the cover of their first album. <strong>Behemoth<\/strong> covered their song \u201c<em>J\u00e1ma Pekel<\/em>\u201d on the <em>Ezkaton<\/em> EP, with Big Boss and Igor Hub\u00edk from Root doing guest vocals.<\/p>\n<p>I was intrigued, and looked the band up on Spotify. <em>Jilemnick\u00fd Okultista<\/em> was nowhere to be found on their artist page, just <em>Slagry<\/em> and <em>Formul\u00e6<\/em>. <em>Formul\u00e6<\/em> was a much more recent album than <em>Slagry<\/em>, 2016 vs 1995, so hoping to get a feel for what the band\u2019s sound was near the time of the recommended record I picked Slagry<em>, <\/em>pressed play, and immediately thought <em>what the fuck is this Frank Zappa shit?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The opening track, &#8220;Savlovy Tanec&#8221;, opens with wind, water, and distant-sounding horns, descending in minor chords as electric guitar layers behind them, adding strength as everything grows to a crescendo and leads into a rendition from the deepest pits of clown hell of Aram Khatchaturian\u2019s \u201cSabre Dance,\u201d a classical piece memetically known as wacky circus music alongside Julius Fucik\u2019s unfortunately named \u201cEntrance of the Gladiators.\u201d A lot of Slagry could be used as the soundtrack to <em>Killer Klowns From Outer Space<\/em> without much of a hitch. Needing to actually get some work done, I put the album down as a miss and hunted down something a little bleaker and more atmospheric.<\/p>\n<p>I couldn\u2019t get <em>Slagry<\/em> out of my head, though. That night I gave it another listen and looked up some more about the record. Most of it consists of covers of or variations on other work, especially classical and folk music. Like mentioned before, there\u2019s the &#8220;Sabre Dance&#8221;, which is then followed by two traditional Czech folk tunes whose performances sound like they\u2019re straight out of a PS1-era JRPG: <em>Ach, synku, synku;<\/em> and <em>P<\/em><em>\u016fjdem Spolu do Betl\u00e9ma<\/em>, which has the added bonus of a young boy&#8217;s choir that is not quite in tune. This is followed by an original work by the band\u2019s frontman, Franta \u0160torm, entitled <em>Indi\u00e1nska p\u00edse<\/em><em>\u0148 hr<\/em><em>\u016fzy<\/em>, a song which Drudkh covered on their EP <em>Slavonic Chronicles<\/em>. The track shows more of a \u201ctraditional\u201d metal sound with the return of electric guitar, though it\u2019s still not the place to go looking if you want to bang your head to something. The next track is \u201cCarl Czerny op. 849,\u201d which is Carl Czerny\u2019s opus 849, one of his piano studies, with the sound in reverse. Things were still intriguing but I hadn\u2019t been drawn in yet.<\/p>\n<p>Then the next track, \u201cRock\u2019n\u2019roll Music,\u201d hit. I was hooked, though a part of me felt that maybe I shouldn\u2019t be. It\u2019s supposedly a cover of <strong>Chuck Berry<\/strong>\u2019s song of the same name, though I would call it more of a variation. The original Chuck Berry song is playing throughout, slowed down to the point of being complete nonsense, meanwhile the cheesiest of synthesizers plays the vocal line at a sluggish but recognizable speed while drum machine and more synthesizers play a repeated pattern underneath. Maybe it\u2019s due more to Chuck Berry\u2019s writing, but damn this thing is catchy. It\u2019s the track I jump to when I listen to this record. If and when I get married it\u2019s going to be the track for the first dance.<\/p>\n<p>The next track, <em>Vzpom\u00edn\u00e1m na zlat\u00e9 <\/em><em>\u010dasey,<\/em> keeps the theme of slowed down vocals. The title and lyrics are that of a poem by an unknown poet, with music by \u0160torm and Vlasta Vorel, the keyboardist. The instrumental parts are full of clusters and folky lines, both of which are my jam, though usually without the experimental electronic element. After not much in the way of an ending cadence, the album rather unceremoniously moves on to the penultimate track, a rendition of Giuseppe Verdi\u2019s \u201cNabucco,\u201d where about half the instrumental parts seem to have been chosen by sitting around and figuring out which settings on Vorel\u2019s keyboard sounded the goofiest.<\/p>\n<p>The final track, <em>Hlava Modernistova<\/em>, is the only real black metal song on the album, complete with the occasional burst of operatic vocals, though it\u2019s less ICS Vortex and more wobbly Slavic baritone with extremely wide vibrato. \u0160torm\u2019s vocals are pretty impressive, though, and the song was intriguing enough to get me interested in their other, more \u201cconventional\u201d albums. The drawback about this song is that since everyone in the band except \u0160torm and Vorel is absent from the record, everything sounds a little anemic, especially in the drum department, and a few of the motives in the guitar feel a little weak and goofy.<\/p>\n<p><em>Slagry<\/em> doesn\u2019t come without its share of controversy, though. A review on Encyclopedia Metalum by Abominatrix gives some possible background, stating that around the time of this record, \u0160torm fired everyone from the band except for the keyboardist, and began making derogatory statements about both black metal and rock music in general, a sentiment that would be interesting, to say the least, coming from someone who still closes out the record with a black metal song. They also state that the insert for the album warns listeners that only those above the age of twenty-something should listen to the record, a claim which I can\u2019t verify as I was unable to get my hands on an actual copy and even if I had I don\u2019t speak Czech anyway. If it is true, however, black metal stalwarts should be glad they at least held onto the insufferable pretentiousness that comes with the genre for this album. <em>Slagry<\/em> ended up marking the end of Master\u2019s Hammer until they came back in 2009, actively recording and performing since then.<\/p>\n<p><em>Slagry<\/em> is like a nightmare vision of what someone would imagine when they hear about people who are into both classical and metal music, yet seem to fundamentally misunderstand exactly what metal sounds like. The difference is, this album was very clearly made by people who knew what they were doing and who have proven themselves to be damn good metal musicians as well, otherwise their other albums wouldn\u2019t keep popping up as cult favorites. The same sort of experimentation seen from composers like <strong>John Cage<\/strong> and <strong>Harry Partch<\/strong> show glimpses throughout <em>Slagry<\/em>, and it\u2019d be hypocritical of me to like those composers so much but fault Master\u2019s Hammer for trying the same vein of experimentation simply because they\u2019re a metal band. Possibly against my better nature I was charmed by this album. I\u2019ve since checked out other work by the group, which is a great mix of black metal and experimental progressive, with a healthy dose of sections that sound like they\u2019re straight out of the soundtrack of a cartoon about a mad scientist and his wacky sidekicks. While the newer album, Formul\u00e6, is a lot more listenable, I can\u2019t deny that there\u2019s something oddly appealing about <em>Slagry<\/em>. If I had to give it a rating, I\u2019d give a decent 6 or a light 7 out of 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A look back at 1995&#8217;s nightmarish combination of classical music and black metal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":75421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"\"The insert for the album warns listeners that only those above the age of twenty-something should listen to the record.\"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,70],"tags":[12183,7746,11832,12182],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/full_MH-Ritual-2017-digipack-OPR-1.jpg?fit=710%2C350&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75416"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}