MV approved hard rockers continue to impress
It’s thoroughly gratifying to watch a band grow.
Back in October 2014, MV was just over a month old when we turned up to a gig in little club on the outskirts of Birmingham to watch Kodiak Jack, and one of the support bands that night, Hammerjack, were their peddling their five track demo.
It got reviewed on the site, and very impressive it was too. Primarily because it didn’t want to be anything that it wasn’t. It wanted nothin’ but a good time (that would be a good title for a song,…..) and it wanted it now. It wanted girls, beer whatever else it could get its hands on, thanks.
A lot of water has gone under the bridge between then and now, but one thing hasn’t changed and that is this: Hammerjack are very, very good indeed.
If the first foray was about hedonism, then this one still is too (and so it should be, the last thing you want from a band like this is some naval gazing bollocks) but it does betray some real growth.
Not least on opener “I Can’t Change”. Everything is in place for a dirty old swagger, but their very real determination to succeed as singer Sharpy spits out lines about his “broken family” and “crying at the window of the childrens home”, but rather than introspection, Hammerjack instead use it as a cue to spur them on.
That arguably anyway, is the best song here, but the other three aren’t too far behind either. “Going Down” bursts out of the blocks with a solo from Korush, but then does a neat line in quiet verse-soaring chorus dynamics, and if “Take It All” is rather more the glam rock stuff you would expect, then it doesn’t mean it’s any less fun – and it’s a fair bet that it finds trouble and/or gets laid on the streets of Guildford (and probably doesn’t care which).
There’s a Southern Rock band beating here too, and “More Than Nothing” and its slide guitar groove proves it, and in so doing rounds off a collection that proves that Hammerjack are very good, but also that they have plenty more to offer.
Just like in 2014, then. When they reach their peak Hammerjack might just nail it.
Rating 8.5/10
