Hammer King - Konig und Kaiser (2024)

Sixth studio work from Hammer King, not bad considering they were born in 2015. Their music is Power Metal, but the more aggressive version of it, like Warkings or Hammerfall on steroids.

They are very noteworthy, yet I believe some people do not jump on their bandwagon, due to some initial impressions that are not music related. You see, they gather all the genre’s cliches. They are another band with Hammer in their name, covers and titles. Their song titles repeat words of their name all the time, in Konig und Kaiser there are 4 of them with hammer or king in them. Adding the other tracks from their back catalog, good luck memorizing their discography. But if you manage to bypass that, you will discover a gold mine.

Let’s see what we get with this new album. To describe the instrumental part best, I have the impression that if at some points we swapped the clean vocals with brutal ones, we would get Amon Amarth as a result. For the rest moments, expect the middle road between the edginess of bands like Grave Digger, Accept and Warkings, with the melodic leads of Hammerfall.

Vocals are closer to Joacim Cans and lack hoarseness, while at times you have some screams or higher pitches like in Future King and War Hammer, that fit greatly. There is of course use of epic backing vocals, but they are not present on every chorus, but rather utilized when they must. At times they are discreet like in the refrain of The Devil Will i Do, and elsewhere they are more prominent such as in Kingdom of Hammer and Kings, and Kings of Arabia.

Will Konig und Kaiser compete for any originality prize? Absolutely not. But at the same time, I don’t want anything more from Hammer King. If you are in the mood for that specific sound, it is one of the best proposals out there. They jump into a sea of genre stereotypes, only to emerge triumphant and unscathed. While the album lasts, I have my fist raised during its whole duration, I have a great time and that’s all that matters in the end. If we have a bigger song title variety next time, we are golden.