Having surfed in on the occult rock wave in 2012 with a self-titled debut, a witchy organist and a wobbly purple logo, this North Carolina troupe are about to unveil their fourth album in five years.
Singer/bassist/songwriter Anders Manga’s back catalogue of darkwave/goth/synth-pop is becoming increasingly audible in what was once his doom project.
With a magazine named Occult Rock and a soundtrack to an imaginary horror film to his recent credit, Manga’s prolific workrate sometimes seems less the result of ceaseless creative energy than an indiscriminate desire to put out every idea he has. Perhaps sensing the diminishing returns of the scene that spawned them, Lovely Sort Of Death cuts a path between fuzz riffs through pop melodies, new wave vibes and electro soundscapes. If this puts off the doom-hounds, Bloody Hammers’ most accessible material proves the most convincing; Messalina is one of their sharpest, savviest tunes, excepting the clunky stoner riff in the middle. Rocking with a workaday plod, Bloody Hammers sound more at home with pop.
