How much noise can a band make in 29:48 minutes? Well, if you want an answer to that question, you only need to play “Trapped” from the Edinburgh (Scotland) based band HAMMER. Thank you very much for not giving me any information to go with the music. Thankfully the combination of linking the right Facebook page with the Metal Archives site got me on the right track. But even on the latter one they couldn’t tell me when HAMMER came into existence, only that they released their debut album “Hammer” in 2020, now followed by “Trapped”. On their Bandcamp page the description is very short. It states that they are an Extreme Metal band and the city they originate from.

But let’s get back to “Trapped”. It is Extreme Metal indeed, because if I would have to try and classify it in any other way I wouldn’t have been able to, even if my life depended on it. Yes, you will get Groove Metal, Death Metal, Punk, Hardcore, Grindcore and Sludge in there somewhere, but none of those fit the bill, so by branding it Extreme Metal the band is talking it easy on us listeners and reporters. And if you are paying close attention to what is being played in the short half hour that everything passes you by you will find that your brain is about to go into overload, or is at least in danger of overheating. The different sounds take a toll on your mental state, as it will make you feel more at unease the further you get into the album.

What bugs me most about HAMMER and this album “Trapped” is that although the band has some great riffs, good ideas and I have to admit that they are bloody competent musicians they are lacking something very important to make a real impact; they are just not very good at writing songs. None of the seven songs on offer sounds good and complete from start to finish. Even though every song has some good parts, they all lack that cohesion and consistency that would make them feel and sound whole to me. The song that comes closest for me is the last song on the album “Alive”. My advice would be to start working with someone who can arrange their ideas into good tunes. My conclusion is that the band might be as powerful and strong as a HAMMER, they are missing hitting the nails right on the head. As far as I’m concerned that is something they really need to work on. Until than they will be “Trapped” in purgatory.