Description
Samples: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001IJYDKA/ref=dm_cd_album_lnk
Hammers Of Misfortune – The August Engine
Label: Cruz Del Sur Music
Format: CD, Album, Promo, Cardboard
Country: Italy
Released: 2003
Genre: Prog Rock, Heavy Metal
Tracklist:
1 The August Engine, Pt. 1 Music By – Chewy Marzolo, John Cobbett 4:52
2 Rainfall Music By – John Cobbett 3:11
3 A Room And A Riddle Music By – John Cobbett 5:12
4 The August Engine, Pt. 2 Music By – Chewy Marzolo, John Cobbett 8:56
5 Insect Music By – John Cobbett 5:19
6 Doomed Parade Music By – John Cobbett 5:40
7 The Trial And The Grave Music By – John Cobbett 11:12
Companies etc
Manufactured By – Sony DADC
Recorded At – Louder Studios
Recorded At – Trakworx
Mastered At – Trakworx
Bass – Janis Tanaka
Cello – Sitara Kapoor (tracks: 2)
Cover [Design] – John Cobbett
Cover [Drawings] – John Cobbett
Drums – Chewy Marzolo
Guitar – John Cobbett
Layout – temnO un.art
Lyrics By – John Cobbett
Mastered By – Justin Wies
Recorded By – Justin Wies, Tim Green (2)
Violin – Kris Force (tracks: 2)
Vocals – Janis Tanaka (tracks: 1, 3 to 7), Lorraine Rath (tracks: 2), Mike Scalzi (tracks: 1, 3 to 7)
Notes:
Recorded December 2001 – April 2002 by Tim Green at Louder Studios in San Francisco and Justin Wies at Trakworx in South San Francisco.
epic masterpiece:
Sign of the Hammer? – 100%
The Metal-Rules staff lists for the 2003 top picks are not even posted as I write this review, but mine list is already incorrect. Why the hell did I not rank this album higher?
THE AUGUST ENGINE is the sophomore album from San Francisco’s Hammers of Misfortune, and although the band features John Cobbett and Mike Scalzi from The Lord Weird Slough Feg, their 2000 album, THE BASTARD launched Hammers of Misfortune to the forefront as more than a mere Slough Feg side project.
It’s progressive. It’s doom. It’s NWOBHM. It’s folk. It’s thrash. However one tries to describe the sound, Hammers of Misfortune is a band that defies classification, but one would not expect anything different from a band that contains former and current members of GWAR, L7, and The Lord Weird Slough Feg.
Whereas THE BASTARD was a concept album of many short songs and interludes pieced together into a concept album, the tunes on THE AUGUST ENGINE each stand alone as monumental pieces, each sharing a small piece of a larger, but looser theme. “The August Engine (part 1)” leads off the album with a chugging instrumental. While the riffs are nice, tight, and catchy, it is the awesome melodic lead that creeps in and out throughout the song. Dream Theater and Symphony X should take notes here on how to write a progressive metal song that is simultaneously heavy, technical, and all-around solidly written. Besides being a catchy and kickass song, an instrumental that is nearly 5 minutes long is an unconventional and eye-opening way to start the album. The transition to “Rainfall” is nearly seamless as the acoustic guitar takes over following some brief piano intro. The vocals of Lorraine Rath are ethereal and beguiling, perfectly complementing the theme and music of this song. “A Room and a Riddle” (sounds like a Skyclad title, heh) is up next. Those familiar with Hammers of Misfortune and The Lord Weird Slough Feg will find this one much like the work on THE BASTARD. This one is just a solid song all the way through, and the gallop and drum on this track will please all trad. metal fans. “The August Engine (part 2)” plays upon the main riff of part 1, taking it through a variety of twists and turns. This is not, however, the same chugging song we first heard on the opener. Rather, this takes a more psychedelic/doom theme, much like a Pink Floydian composition. This is a very powerful song, and Mike Scalzi’s harsh, but clean vocals are offset by some nice backing female chorus vocals. I love the lyrics here: “Within you live my manufactured dreams/Soon, we’ll be repackaging your quaint, rebellious schemes/Within this August Engine’s power/To vindicate or to devour/As armies march and temples tower. This is among my favourite songs on the album, with lots of builds, falls, and false climaxes. “Insect” starts off in a very folky fashion with an extended acoustic piece and the soft female vocals by bassist Janis Tanaka (who, interestingly, has played in L7, Pink, and Fireball Ministry) offsetting the harsh voice of Scalzi, building into a full power metal burner to carry through the song. By far, the best song on the album is “Doomed Parade.” This absolutely brilliant tune is what Hammers of Misfortune is all about: twisting and melodic progressions, robust leads, superb songwriting, intelligent lyrics, and a full realization of the brilliant duet between Tanaka and Scalzi. Incredible! Dooming out the end of the album is “The Trial and the Grave.” This 11-minute plodding epic winds down the brilliant duet that we’ve been hearing on the past couple songs as it transitions into a simple, melancholy outro. Some listeners may find this song to be a little too weighty, but I feel that it is complete and appropriate way to tie up the ends of the album in a manner that balances the six songs preceding it.
THE AUGUST ENGINE is one of the finest pieces of epic metal that I have ever heard. Hammers of Misfortune have exceeded every expectation that I had coming into this album, and there is something on this disc for fans of all types of metal. Fans of The Lord Weird Slough Feg, US Power Metal, Folk, and NWOBHM especially will want to check this album out. Myself? I’m now moving this one up a couple notches on my Best of 2003 list to at least position #4.
(originally written for www.metal-rules.com, January, 2004)
Masterful – 97%
what a great band. The Bay Area (California) has produced some…ummm…shall we say….notable…bands. From the Metallica of old to the Impaled of now, the area has always been a source of great metal. Now we have Hammers of Misfortune. After the exceptional (if somewhat unrealized) vision that was “The Bastard”, Hammers returns with this absolute masterpiece of an album. Do not listen to this if you want to be easily pleased. Do not listen to this if you only like music with blast beats. What we have hear is thoughtful, well constructed, warm sounding (thanks to the great old-school analog recording- take that ProTools!), and plain ROCKIN’ slab o’metal that runs the gamut from Megadeth style frenetic thrash riffs (Room and a Riddle) to heavy, depressing doom (Doomed Parade, Trial and the Grave) to beautiful folk-ish acoustic passages (too numerous to count). Mike Scalzi, the unique and VERY strange sounding vocalist (and point of much contention among those who hear this group), is, in my humble opinion, one of the most refreshing and amazing singers out there. His deep voice glides over the material beautifully carrying the odd vocal lines with grace, and adding an awesome power to the heavier moments. Fans of Doom, heavy, power, and thrash metal will be damn pleased with this album. One of the best of 2003, if not the last few years. Now if only they’d play LA again.
Gorgeous – 99%
Hammers of Misfortune, the brainchild of S.F. metal overlord John Cobbett released what was easily the greatest album of 2000 in this reviewers opinion with their progressive doom/thrash/power/folk opera The Bastard. After such a brilliant and perfectly sculpted debut it’s hard to imagine how Hammers of Misfortune could follow this up. In the eyes of many casual fans when you debut yourself with a concept album, especially one of the pure quality of The Bastard, following it up will almost always lead to dissent amongst your fans. And I’m sure this has been true of The August Engine.
Recorded long ago but delayed to an absurd degree by lack of funds and a label who wanted to release a critically acclaimed but not exactly the most listener-friendly band. This is truely sophisticated, artistic progressive metal that has first listen-appeal but the real magic doesn’t come out until repeated listens. While The August Engine isn’t a concept album in the strictest sense of the term, it does have themes both musically and lyrically which weave in and out through many of the tracks, often hidden in the background. The lyrical thematics of The August Engine recall a gallery of woe, individual tales of people doomed to a fate not of their choosing. One thing I noticed while listening to this album is that before while Hammers kept their songs tight and concise and chiseled, on The August Engine the band is not afraid to take a song and expand it and twist it, the prog influences coming more to light.
Track by track breakdown:
1. The August Engine (Part 1) – The opener is a thrashy instrumental number which introduces us to several of the musical themes that recur throughout the rest of the album. It fades into the next track with many acoustic interludes that never seem forced or contrived.
2. Rainfall – A quiet piano-acoustic guitar song with guest vocals from Lorraine Rath, very flow-y like the subject of the song (water), this song never speeds up or gets electric but it’s a good yin to the previous tracks yang.
3. A Room And A Riddle – If the previous track is water then this is fire. Easily the balls-out rocker of the bunch. Almost Slough Feg-ish in it’s riffery and thunder. Mike Scalzi’s rocking tenor work is in full effect here. If you are more a fan of their traditional side then this would probably be your favorite track.
4. The August Engine (Part 2) – The counterpart to Part 1 of course, this track closes out the first side of the vinyl. This is a mid-paced song that rolls along with some virulent lyrics spat out in Scalzi’s throaty howl. The ending of the song was the most suprising part for me as it repeats a theme and turns it inside out and twists it into oblivion in ways they never have before. Very progressive.
5. Insect – This tracks starts of with a finger picked acoustic introduction showcasing John Cobbetts unmistakable flair for melody with dual vocals between bassist Janis Tanaka (now playing for P!nk’s band) and Scalzi until it builds into a thrashing churn and more scarred chanting from Scalzi. Truely one of the most unique voices in metal. This song contains some of the more obvious musical thematics as the riff from The August Engine (Part 1) is blatently repeated. Other moments of intertwining the songs are typically much more subtle throughout the album.
6. Doomed Parade – Probably my favorite track of the album, it almost sounds as though this song was composed on an acoustic guitar and translated into a more metal context. The track is rife with gorgeous melancholy melody, Scalzi and Tanaka duet and solo alternately perfectly on this track. Some of the most painful lyrics on the record are to be heard here with Scalzi crying “The night moves like a glacier slow and cold/yet rage takes over as I see the plan unfold/so that’s your game to take away/the only friend I’ve ever made”. If this album had a single, this would probably be it.
7. The Trial And The Grave – Easily the biggest suprise of the album. This is a doom sludge dirge that creeps along at the pace of a death crawl. But in the slowness Cobbett’s guitar work gets to shine more then any other track. The other highlight of the track is the vocals of Janis Tanaka who coos this tale like the crone sitting by her sunken hovel painting pictures in the air with a staff and her words. This song never fails to suprise with it’s twists and turns in how Tanaka handles the vocals in such a slow song without resorting to gutterals like so many other sludge bands. The tracks ends with one of the saddest themes composed by Cobbett to date, an epic doom duel of guitarists that would threaten to destroy the realm in which this album exists.
A San Francisco band with a complicated web of pasts, Hammers Of Misfortune have one album to their name, before recording this masterpiece of unexplored metal dementia through ’01 and ’02. The band’s alien yet olden vibe pulls you in right from the start, The August Engine sounding like a cross between the NWOBHM and Jasonic-era Voivod, with melodies, acoustic respites and suspensions of belief right out of the curmudgeonly Animals album by Pink Floyd. Hell, throw in old school doom and accessible Death Angel to that arcane mix as well. Tracks rock hard and importantly, with a deft percentage of Nicko-frantic chaos to render them organic, live-like and unpredictable. All the vocals are slightly eccentric, and dual female and male voices are used to sumptuous effect, upon lyrics that are enigmatic like the mystical penetrations from Chris Goss. The end result is a singularly unique sound that is in effect a psychedelic version of the most golden moments from Maiden; epic yes, but completely and firmly at a high artistic level that never evokes the cheese of power metal. Entirely something new, and entirely something creatively masterful.
Rating: 10″
John Cobbett has earned quite a reputation in the underground metal scene for his creative and rather unique riffs. In Hammers of Misfortune, Cobbett infuses progressive rock with a more traditional metal sound. So far, I have listened to three of their albums, Dead Revolution, The Locust Years, and Dead Revolution. All three albums contain technically accomplished but catchy riffing and guitar playing throughout. This album incorporates more acoustic instruments than the others I have listened to. One thing I loved about this album, in addition to the guitar playing, is the gloomy and Gothic sounding male and female vocals. Highlights of the album include the transition from the heavy but incredibly catchy riffs in The August Engine (Part 1) to the acoustic track Rainfall, the solos in The August Engine (Part 2), and the doomy The Trial and the Grave. This album is actually a concept album about “a conversation between a microcosm and a macrocosm”. Apparently, the album was going to originally be much larger in scope, and although it’s a fantastic album in its current form, I do hope they’ll someday release it in full. As it is, I think it’s a very solid album with a sound that is sort of unique to Hammers of Misfortune, and I like it about as much as The Locust Years, and more than Dead Revolution. If I could give it a 4.5, I would, but I’ll round up.
So soon the moon will come unfold her robe of constellations
And for a time the night was mine in endless fascination
But now she brings me only shadows and a host of memories
Marching on
Endlessly
Like a ghostly brigade
Marching on – Doomed parade
But now she’s gone away (She was here)
Forever, I’m afraid (She was real)
No longer shall the night, from the sun
Provide its blessed shade
I saw her with my eyes (She was real)
I touched her with my hands (She was here)
Right here in this room She whispered in my ear
Lost forever… to hell
Here is a wound, To go with your uniform
Here is a message, you’ll never forget
Back in your tomb, reaping your true reward
The path you have chosen, you’ll learn to regret
“Sleep, angel sleep
Be not a ghost trapped in the light
Be as the day, and pass away
Into the night.”
The night moves like a glacier, slow and cold
Yet rage takes over as I see the plan unfold
So that’s your game, to take away the only friend I’ve ever made
In this place
How we laughed
At the ghostly brigade
Marching on – Doomed parade
I must say I’m impressed
Such cruelty in a jest
The depth of your malevolence, the fools would never guess
Leave me alone… in hell.
After making a splash in the world of progressive metal with its debut album “The Bastard,” the San Francisco based HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE led by guitarist John Cobbett began writing an even more ambitious rock opera that was supposed to rival or exceed the grandiosity of an epic tale such as Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” but the record companies who release these albums simply were not having it and Cobbett and his project were forced to start from scratch when crafting a sophomore release. The result of taking a new approach led them to the musical workouts that would appear on THE AUGUST ENGINE which while not quite as ambitious as what had been planned still ended up as a concept album that revolved around a continued conversation between the microcosm and the macrocosm and how each individual in society amounts to being a mere cog in a greater design that is referred to by the title.
Well, ok then! Concept albums are fun and often nebulous in the philosophical wankery but the good thing about albums like THE AUGUST ENGINE is that the themes lend a lot to the listener’s interpretation. While “The Bastard” was basically set up like an rock opera in three acts, THE AUGUST ENGINE is basically the sum of the parts of seven disparate tracks that borrowed a lot from the debut’s sound such as the classic Lord Weird Slough Feg heavy metal that guitarist / vocalist Mike Scalzi brought to the table as well as the folk elements but this time around the folk is less medieval sounding and the progressive aspects have been turned up making this album seem much more like a progressive metal album than the debut. Despite the more daring compositional twists and turns and time signature zigzagging, THE AUGUST ENGINE retains the heavy metal bombast of the debut.
The instrumentation on “The Bastard” was performed only by four musicians: John Cobbett (guitar, producer), Mike Scalzi (guitar, vocals), Janis Tanaka (bass, vocals) and Chewy Marzolo (drums). THE AUGUST ENGINE found the same lineup with three extra musicians on “Rainfall” which included extra vocals, violin and cello. No credits for keyboards are presented but there are a few piano runs but the keys haven’t been fully integrated like they would be on the band’s following album “The Locust” which added the extra elements needed to make HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE feel like a bona fide prog metal band. The metal and folk elements tended to trade off on the debut while on THE AUGUST ENGINE they have become more integrated with alterations between the two as well as simultaneous weavings of the two styles. Same goes with the vocals of Scalzi and Tanaka who compliment each other’s harmonies as often as they take the lead. The guitar runs are much more adventurous this time around with just as many long-winded space rock styled solos set in metal fashion as well as the expected crunchy riffing sections.
HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE succeeds in crafting a worthy epic sounding album after it’s magnanimous perfect debut but in many ways THE AUGUST ENGINE sounds more like a transition between the prog laced metal and folk interludes of the debut album and the full-fire prog assaults of the following “The Locust” however the album instills its own charm and works for what it is and also established the band as one that would not be happy simply repeating what came before and displayed a true passion for progressing beyond what had been established before. Given the fact that “The Bastard” took the idea to its logical conclusion on the first try meant the band had to seek out a slightly different path and THE AUGUST ENGINE displays the band taking on more progressive workouts with sludgy thrash metal riffs that wouldn’t sound out of place on an early Mastodon album along with the classic 80s heavy metal sounds as well as atmospheric moments that remind of atmospheric black metal and even moments of doom metal. Even the folk is darker this time around as the flavors of the Renaissance had been completely abandoned in favor of a darker more sinister vibe.
To be honest, i’ve had a hard time warming up to THE AUGUST ENGINE as i find the debut and the following album to be superior but i have found this to be a personal choice and after giving this several spins i have to admit that despite my preference for the other albums, THE AUGUST ENGINE is nevertheless a very professional sounding album that exceeds on many levels even if not taking things to the places i would prefer they go. The vocal team of Scialzi and Tanaka create beautiful melodic harmonies that sweeten the fast tempo metal assaults and doomy dirge effects along with the soaring guitars that pacify the pounding bass and drum action. The folk elements are scarcer on this second album however “Rainfall” is completely in the realms of dark folk and the beautiful intro on “Insect” shows how tastefully the band had steered these sounds into a darker arena. Ever so often such as on “Doomed Parade” a few medieval tinged moments do emerge. Once again the tracks are not overweeningly lengthy for the most part. Only the title track “Part 2” which nears nine minutes and the 11 minute “The Trial And The Grave” deliver extended prog formats. THE AUGUST ENGINE is a worthy followup to the perfection of “The Bastard” and although doesn’t quite hit that high mark, is still an excellent slice of progressive metal that sounds like no other.
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