Hailing from Philadelphia, Fisthammer are a young band who have decided to eschew the current retro, throwback trend and go for a modern, clean take on death metal and throw in a smorgasbord of elements. The result is a pretty solid album that takes a while to get going, but has a lot of promise once it does hit its stride.
A dash of typical US death metal (i.e. Cannibal Corpse, Divine Empire) , some tech death metal, some thrash, some melodic death metal and some groove are all the pieces that make up Devour All That You See. And its all delivered with a youthful vigor and energy as well as a top notch production that hides some of the albums song writing’s missteps.
The first 3 songs on Devour All That You See (“Razor Waves”, “Aten: Fear the Obliteration of Earth” and “Kull the Conqueror”, while solid and intense, never really grab you or get your attention, though a brief short mid song march in “Kull the Conqueror” preempted something better, and kept me from hitting the stop button, as the flash of better music kept me curious. That curiosity pays off as the Dethklok– ish (a surprisingly recurrent sound) “Bullet Rape” veers the album into much more memorable pastures with flashier guitar work that adds a little more character to the mish mash of other elements.
“Berzerkers” has an almost melodic death metal canter and stomp to it, but Greg Hesselton’s vocals keep things more burly and brutal. The stern “Doom of the Gods” is a moodier number that could have come from any Amon Amarth number (also, Dethklok again comes to mind- who would of thought that we would be comparing bands to cartoon parody band at some point). The intensity is cranked way back up for “Harvest” and some nifty solo work surfaces in the rumbling “Zombopocalypse” and melodic “Cross the Lines on Blood” (there’s that D word again). “The Resurrection of Bastet the Devourer” (apparently the name of some Ancient Egyptian cat god) ends the album and a nice 6 song run with a pretty epic crossover of brutality and melodic gallop, that sort of encapsulates Fisthammer‘s sound.
In all, a solid debut album from a new band that seems to have sound their sound about a third into the album, even if the lyrical themes are still a bit all over the place. It certainly is worth a listen and you have to give the band a little credit for not taking the popular old school homage route and trying something a little newer sounding and varied.
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Hahaha, there is some Dethklok in this band, yeah.
on Jun 11th, 2012 at 09:17I really like this. I’ll be watching these fellers.
on Jun 13th, 2012 at 16:52I didn’t even notice they were from philly. awesome.
on Jun 14th, 2012 at 10:06Gave this band a listen and reviewed them for The Metal Observer; it’s cool to hear them taking in sounds from all corners of the death metal realm, but the jack-of-all-trades approach makes it difficult for them to particularly excel at anything.
on Jun 14th, 2012 at 17:14I’ll never be able to thank Teeth and Co. enough for turning me on to Fisthammer. These guys are a Trojan Horse, chock full of hard-hitting death metal goodness. (And they are also a must listen for Dethklok fans…of which I am one.)
on Jun 14th, 2012 at 20:32I wish Dethklok’s second record was better. less funny, less heavily produced. what a bummer.
on Jun 16th, 2012 at 10:01