When taken in the context of 1991 releases, Master's Hammer's Ritual is an entirely bizarre entry into the field of extreme metal. At the time most metal bands were plying their death metal wares, with a tendency towards technical ability. Thrash metal was winding down and black metal hadn't quite formulated into a cohesive subgenre yet. Ritual doesn't quite fit into any neat genre categories and even now, after metal has spent nearly two decades evolving and fusing a myriad of styles into the core form, this debut still defies logical classification.

Master's Hammer formed in the Czech Republic (although that country was known as Czechoslovakia until 1993) and released a few demos before putting out Ritual. The album was originally released on Monitor Records before Osmose ultimately picked up distribution (not that Osmose was a particularly prominent label back then). The album featured quite a few unorthodox sounds. For instance, very few metal bands actually utilized keyboards, but Master's Hammer included a reasonable amount of synthesized sounds on Ritual. Perhaps the closest relative to their music could be found on Celtic Frost's To Mega Therion, although there is little in common besides a tendency towards peculiar music. The vocals are quite unusual, a throaty sort of ghostly wailing. This might be the toughest aspect to assimilate on the album. However, for metal purists, the album features quite a bit of smart lead guitar playing with harmonic sections.

Ritual is one of the more unusual albums of its time. It's somewhat hard to discern exactly what inspired this band to create this style. The album isn't quite so freakishly strange that it defies all comprehension, but in the relatively conservative field of metal, it does come across as a rather unexpected debut.

Review by John Chedsey

Review date: 12/2009

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When Master's Hammer, having gone through some lineup changes, released Slagry, many a head surely was scratched in dismay and wonderment at exactly what this band had released. Foregoing their previous black metal style entirely, this strange release is one of the most comical and nonsensical releases I can recall. And sadly, it is comical in the negative connotation of that word. Aside from the stirring rendition of "Savlovy Tanec" to open the album and the closing track "Mava Modernistova" (which revisits the band's old days as a metal outfit), much of this album is a collage of hilariously bad takes on minimalistic and avant garde music, mixed with circus tunes and goofball left field music. Or a college marching band on a bad brand of acid. Ridiculous doesn't even begin to describe how utterly misplaced their intentions are. At times their music gets so absurd that disbelief is the only reaction possible. I almost wonder if the remaining members of the band had a vendetta against Osmose Records and their revenge was the master tapes of Slagry. I guarantee you can convince guests who have overstayed their welcome to leave posthaste to Master's Hammer's version of Chuck Berry's "Rock'n'Roll Music". I guess the only way to think of Slagry is the Residents on a sadistic binge or the worst tendencies of a pretensious college Humanities course. I'm convinced someone somewhere is having a laugh at all our expense and chances are he's a member of Master's Hammer.

Review by John Chedsey

Review date: 06/200

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