Norway's black/thrash maniacs Deathhammer stream their new album in full

When the apocalypse inevitably hits, the main entities likely to adapt are cockroaches, Hostess cake products - whose lack of natural ingredients, shelf-life measured in aeons and sponge-like nature will surely soak up radiation like a tree processes oxygen - and thrash bands. If you’re fighting E-Number-crazed insects for the only viable food left amongst the ashes, you’re going to need lightning-fast reactions, a thoroughly ruthless attitude, all the bulletbelts you can possibly muster and to generally be okay with returning to some primitive state of spittle-flecked, no-fucks-given lunacy.

Norwegian duo Deathhammer have been preparing for such a scenario for the past 13 years, stripping their sound down to its most efficient, six-foot-fucking-cockroach-slaying core, sounding constantly primed to leap into action in a millisecond and mercilessly free of anything that might be surplus to requirements: evolution, melody, the ability to reflect and so on.

All of which means that if Deathhammer’s forthcoming fourth album Chained To Hell - revving up and smashing through the gates of Hells Headbangers Records on October 5 – doesn’t offer any surprises, it’s only because it goes one better. It exists in a constant present state of hyper-alert, speed metal mania whose rampant electrical current will have your arm raised into a claw long before your conscious brain has even clogged what’s going on.

For those who like their thrash atavistic, raw and of a pace that makes Mad Max look like an Ingmar Bergman movie, we’re streaming Chained To Hell in its full nutzoid glory. Hell - and huge, luminous Hostess Twinkies - awaits, so without further ado, jump on a boulder, rouse a mass of unkempt and bizarrely painted warriors into a frenzy, scamper across the wasteland and raise a desiccated possum to the memory of Carlos Ezquerra with Chained To Hell as your soundtrack!

Check out Deathhammer's Facebook page here!

Having freelanced regularly for the Melody Maker and Kerrang!, and edited the extreme metal monthly, Terrorizer, for seven years, Jonathan is now the overseer of all the album and live reviews in Metal Hammer. Bemoans his obsolete superpower of being invisible to Routemaster bus conductors, finds men without sideburns slightly circumspect, and thinks songs that aren’t about Satan, swords or witches are a bit silly.