Sorry for the lack of post, folks, I attended this pseudo-festival in Hungary called Sziget which was a bit exhausting. Back to posting. I know this might be a bit too much personal stuff even for blog-journalism but I’d love to do a ‘My Friend…’ series. Unfortunately I don’t have that many friends and, naturally, even less who make some music (for example, I’d love to write more about The Moog but they never send me anything). We’ve written about Hungary’s very first and still best (if there are any others) noise-pop band, Hammer of Gods. The mastermind behind HoG is Gergo and I dare say he’s the most multi-talented musician (I kinda hate this word but whatever) of Hungary’s underground with an awesome and huge skill-set. He sings and plays guitar in HoG. He’s the lyricist and the songwriter. He also drums for The Moog, for Norbert Kristof and occasionally plays in Népi Papa. From studio works, mastering, recording and production to field work with bands… I think it would be appropriate to call him a music-machine. He believes in many things that I find essential for music-making. The garage attitude, diy punkism, not-dilletant amateurism…but it would be a mistake to list it, if you listen to the songs, they suggest it implicitly. The reason for me writing about him this time is a new demo of HoG that he recorded, all instruments by himself. I think he missed a flight and was bored. And the song came out amazing. Gergo’s voice acquired some quality I haven’t spotted before, some different depth, something like Paul Banks’ or Robert Smith’s, something theatrical. Musically, the song has a cool noisy, fuzzy guitar line and the rhythm marches ahead lifting your soul up. Of course, I wouldn’t be so injust to leave the rest of the band out, I look forward to the full-band studio version and the live shows are great, everyone seems to be adding their share of music-spirit to the end-product. At this stage, the song reminds me of The Thermals. Both the tragedy hidden-not hidden inside and power that drags you until the end of these 3, very intense minutes. “The game is on!”

Hammer of Gods - Cathy by a Tree [mediafire] // [ysi]

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 12:34 pm and is filed under hungary, noise pop, hammer of gods, indie.