"Deathchrist" is the second album from retro-band Warhammer, the band that imitates Hellhammer (the band) SO much they probably owe Tom Warrior royalties. I picked this album up after reading the review of their first album (also here on LARM), but even that didn't prepare me for the level of imitation this band operates on. Trust me - this band sounds EXACTLY like Hellhammer, except maybe that they recorded on better equipment. The guitar, bass, and drum sounds are identical, vocalist Volker Frederich sounds JUST like "Satanic Slaughter", and the way the riffs and songs are built are in exactly that same 'slightly-punkish-but-heavy-and-evil' way. The first five seconds of the album's opener "This Graveyard Earth" even sound suspiciously like "The Third of the Storms", and to go even farther they do their own 'Triumph of Death' on this album. Here it's called "Defy the Dark", but it's the same kind of thing - long-open-chord-and-sparse-drumbeat opener than winds its way to a mid-paced CRUSHING riff, and the song lasts about ten minutes. Fucking classic.

Maybe some people have a problem with clone bands like this, but I can only counter this with two statements: 1) most 'clone' bands really don't try to simply copy COMPLETELY the style of ONE band like this; Warhammer comes so close to the original the lines blur - you could say 'these are lost Hellhammer sessions' and I'd probably believe you. And 2) seeing as Tom GAYbriel Fischer has been shitting all over his own past for over 15 years now, we're definitely not going to get any new Hellhammer out of him; why not let someone who DOES like the style carry it forward? HAIL WARHAMMER!

© 2000 lord vic