Doors 7:30pm | Show 8:30pm
With a newly-rejuvenated line-up and their signature sound intact, San Francisco’s Hammers of Misfortune have returned with 17th Street, a brash and heartfelt song cycle, blending the best elements of NWOBHM, thrash, doom metal, and American folk music while somehow sounding unlike any of these. 17th Street takes the band’s inimitable sound to a new level, creating an emotional gravity that only further accentuates the band’s formidable songwriting chops. “I can see how someone could find it an upbeat record at first glance” says John Cobbett, guitarist and producer of the band, also of underground metal legends Ludicra and Slough Feg. “If you listen carefully, you’ll find that each song has its own point of view. You might find hope, or something very different, very dark.”
On 17th Street, Cobbett’s intuitive ax work creates waves of atmosphere that bear up one spirited anthem after another, with the help of freewheeling percussion provided by the band’s only other founding member, Chewy Marzolo, as well as the haunting organ and piano of longtime member Sigrid Sheie and the chugging rhythms of bassist Max Barnett. But the new album also showcases Hammers’ two newest line-up additions, guitarist and vocalist Leila Abdul-Rauf (Saros, Vastum, Amber Asylum) and vocalist Joe Hutton (The Worship of Silence). “Leila really brought me back to writing for the electric guitar” says Cobbett. “She thinks about the guitar as a rhythm instrument, in the same way I do. And Joe… people always ask me, ‘Do the line-up changes change the way you write?’ And the answer is usually no. But with Joe, it’s yes. How could you not write for a voice like that?”
While reconfiguring the band’s line-up, Cobbett began writing 17th Street, a multi-faceted expression of loss and disillusionment the guitarist felt reverberating near and far during the time of its writing. “It’s about loss, and endings” says Cobbett. “The songs each deal with this in one way or another. It could be the loss of a loved one, a relationship, a way of life, one’s home or livelihood, or one’s innocence. It could be about any number of these things at the same time. It’s not uncommon for me to write lyrics about several different things at the same time. I feel that this makes it easier for the listener to get whatever meaning he or she needs from the song.”