While the schlocky, horror B-movie aesthetic has become somewhat de rigueur for occult-occupied doom acts, we’ve nonetheless become accustomed to there still being something genuinely unsettling about them; scratch the melodious surface of Uncle Acid, for example, and you’ll find something just as dark as Electric Wizard.
Not so, however, with the (apparently) ‘Transylvania County’, North Carolina-based Bloody Hammers, who are to the likes of Wizard and Uncle Acid what The Devil Rides Out is to the Manson family murders.
Taking more than a few musical cues from seminal alt-sludgers Acid Bath – during the eerie The Last Alarm especially – what Under Satan’s Sun lacks in threat it more than makes up for in melody and (whisper it) catchiness. The real driving force here is mastermind Anders Manga’s vocal flair, which switches exquisitely between classic rock wail and brooding, doomy baritone, with his keen ear for attention grabbing melody never more apparent than during opener The Town That Dreaded Sundown.
