Album review: Hammok – When Does This Place Become Our Scene

This week, Hammok released the single Blast Off (Blast Off) Blast Off. As we’re all aware, singles generally serve as a helpful representation of the music from the album they’re on, or the most accessible taster from it to bait the hook of interest.

Having that logic in mind when listening to Blast Off (Blast Off) Blast Off is hilarious, not least because it’s hard to initially get a handle on what the hell you’re listening to.

Imagine a stuttering skiffle barely holding itself together. Then add a whining guitar line that just about stays on the right side of annoying. Throw in an explosion of riffs, bring to the boil and bon appetit. It shouldn’t work, and at various points it sounds like it comes perilously close to collapsing. And yet it does work, and is oddly captivating. In which case, it is a successful representation of the record it’s on. So, too, is The Scene, the frantic maelstrom of a first single.

When Does This Place Become Our Scene, the new album from Oslo-based trio Hammok, is the sound of musicians in lockdown, paying no mind to having to play these songs live at some point, but focusing instead on creating feral, interesting music in their own corner of the world, while, as the album’s title suggests, looking for connection with the wider community.

There are positives and negatives from this way of working. The good thing is that Semi-Automatic Machines, BANG and Thirst possess the blistering urgency of a fire in a room with no doors. The downside, however, is that the busy nature of Hammok’s sound doesn’t sustain the interest throughout, especially when, as on Groundbreaker, you’ve got a track pushing the five-minute mark. Frankly, it can be exhausting.

That reliance on the frantic may be masking some ills, as we find out on Tap Water, a slower and calmer offering, for the most part at least, that sounds like indie-rock by numbers. In its best moments, though, and in its exploration of loneliness as an impediment vs. a strength, When Does This Place Become Our Scene shows tremendous promise and insight.

Rating: 3/5

For fans of: At The Drive-In, The Armed, Vianova

When Does This Place Become Our Scene is released on June 5 via Sargent House