Rest assured that in any likely incarnation, Foehammer will remain devastating. The Virginian extreme-heavy specialists released their 2022 sophomore outing, Monumentum (discussed here), through Silent Pendulum Records and seem e’er-ready to unleash their raw death sludge on whoever might be in their path. Led by founding guitarist/vocalist Jay Cardinell, the band was a two-piece on that record and as they move inexorably toward their third sometime in the next however long, they’ve reemerged as a trio. Wouldn’t it be fun if for every record they put out, they got to add another player to the band? Like, that’s the game? What would a six-piece Foehammer sound like?

Loud. They would be loud. They’re loud now, so maybe they can save the trouble.

Newly arrived to the lineup are drummer Ben Proudman (Thonian Horde, Black Blizzard, etc.) and bassist Tim Reaper. This manifestation of Foehammer will make their live debut at Grim Reefer Fest in Baltimore in three weeks, playing alongside Yatra, Black Lung, Weedeater, Leather Lung, Telekinetic Yeti, Haze Mage and more. Details on that are here. No doubt more will follow. I have no idea if they’re working on new material or anything yet, but either way, they might want to get a set sorted out first, which no doubt they already have.

Cardinell put the following on the ol’ sociables, and I do believe him in the assessment he offers of the new lineup:

Very excited to finally announce this. We have an all new lineup featuring two old friends of mine – Tim Reaper @timreaper666 taking up the bass duties 💪🏻 and Ben Proudman @tattoosbyprdmn stepping up to the drum throne!! 🥁🤘🏻 Believe me when I tell you, this shit is heavy, y’all.

We will debut this new abomination with a special set at the swiftly upcoming @grimreeferfest , Saturday 4/27 at Ottobar @theottobar . We go on somewhat early in the day so make sure to come out for the whole thing!

Foehammer 2024:
Tim Reaper – Bass
Ben Proudman – Drums
Jay Cardinell – Guitar / Vox

https://www.facebook.com/foehammerva/
https://www.instagram.com/foehammer_band/
https://foehammer.bandcamp.com/

http://www.facebook.com/SilentPendulumRecords
https://www.instagram.com/silent_pendulum_records/
https://silentpendulumrecords.bandcamp.com/

Foehammer, Monumentum (2022)

I was lucky enough to attend the April 2023 edition of the Baltimorean all-dayer Grim Reefer Fest (review here), which featured Bongzilla as headliners and the likes of Sun Voyager and Holy Fingers, among others. Returning from last year’s bill for 2024 are Haze Mage, who are involved in organizing the fest — fair’s fair — and that’s it so far, though there are still two bands TBA, which tells me there’s probably a tour waiting to be announced or something like that. Sometimes it’s logistics as much as teasing with these lineup reveals.

But with the undebatable Weedeater in the top spot for 2024 backed by the atmospheric heavy rock of Black Lung, Yatra‘s we’re-the-death-metal-band-the-heavyheads-like extremity and Leather Lung‘s sludge metal party, along with High Leaf coming down from Philly, Foehammer up from VA and Bleak Shore, who just played their first show this past December, the day seems pretty packed even before you get to the two TBAs. It’ll be a fun one if you’re in the neighborhood on April 27, which you might consider being.

The announcement came down the PR wire thusly:

This April we return to the legendary Ottobar in Baltimore on Saturday April 27th for our 5th annual fest, bringing a very full day of the dankest & heaviest riffs around!

This year’s lineup includes:
Weedeater
Black Lung
Haze Mage
Yatra
Leather Lung
High Leaf
Foehammer
Bleak Shore

Plus we’ve got a couple more to still announce! Stay tuned!

Once again, the amazing Golden Grillz food truck will be parked outside all day and night to take care of all of your munchie needs!

Tickets are now available here: https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/62386586

Early birds get your tickets now! Prices for tickets go up after March 1st!
More details at GrimReeferFest.com

Poster by John DeCampos aka @ghost_bat_

Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/4LgCZ1iCo

https://www.facebook.com/GrimReeferFest
https://www.instagram.com/grimreeferfest/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3BL9lkMWbIC2qaqWZ4LH8g
https://www.grimreeferfest.com/

Sun Voyager, Live at Grim Reefer Fest 2023

Couple TBAs here, in Richmond, Columbus, Cincinnati. That should be easy enough to fill, considering it’s Foehammer. [EDIT MARCH 2: And yeah, it was easy enough to fill. The poster and dates have been updated.] The Virginian crushers will head out on April 28 to support late 2022’s Monumentum (review here), which came out through Silent Pendulum Records as the atmospherically punishing follow-up to 2018’s debut, Second Sight (review here). It’s a Midwestern tour, hitting Louisville, St. Louis, Chicago and Indianapolis before circling back through Ohio and Pittsburgh, the latter a third show in Pennsylvania after the two tour openers in Harrisburg and Harrisonburg, which yes I do find harrilarious thank you for asking.

Joining guitarist/vocalist Jay Cardinell for the run on drums will be Zak Suleri, also of Et Mors, Cerulean Room and a bunch of others. I’m not sure what’s up with Ben Price, who played on Monumentum — that is, if he’s still in the band — but the “for this tour” in the announcement below makes me think he is, since Suleri‘s filling in.

In any case, here’s the tour as it stands now, as posted by the band on the ol’ sociables:

FOEHAMMER – Monumentum Spring Tour 2023

Very excited to announce this today as it’s been a long time coming! In just over 8 weeks Foehammer will embark on our first tour in six years! It would be an understatement to say we’re stoked for these shows and the amazing acts we get to play with.

Sick poster art by the GOAT (#128016#) Matt Scott aka @vinumsabbati

On drums for this tour will be Zakir Suleri @cerulean_room singer / guitarist of the amazing @et_mors

Still looking for help on these TBA’s so if you know of anything good going on in Richmond, Columbus, Cincinnati, or the surrounding areas please let us know!

More specific show announcements and flyers to come so keep your (#128065#)️(#128065#)️ peeled!

Foehammer live:
04.28 Harrisburg PA JB Lovedraft’s*
04.29 Harrisonburg VA Crayola House
04.30 Raleigh NC School Kids*
05.01 Louisville KY Highlands Tap Room
05.03 Columbus OH Spacebar
05.04 Chicago IL Reggie’s
05.05 St Louis MO Platypus
05.06 Indianapolis IN State Street Pub
05.07 Akron OH Buzzbin**
05.08 Pittsburgh PA Blackforge Coffee**
* with False Gods
** with Altar and the Bull

https://www.facebook.com/foehammerva/
https://www.instagram.com/foehammer_band/
https://foehammer.bandcamp.com/

http://www.facebook.com/SilentPendulumRecords
https://www.instagram.com/silent_pendulum_records/
https://silentpendulumrecords.bandcamp.com/

Foehammer, Monumentum (2022)

Oh, what a grim and wretched pleasure it is to share some new Foehammer with you this morning. The occasion is you, marking your calendar with an old-style felt-tip pen to note the Nov. 18 arrival date for the Virginia sludge extremist duo’s second full-length, Monumentum, and if you weren’t yet looking forward to that, behold the grueling lumber of “The Disk” below.

The band announced last month they’d signed with Silent Pendulum Records for their new release, and it’s been a whopping four years since their counterintuitively titled debut album, Second Sight (review here), darkened skies in 2018. All the more fair to call Monumentum “awaited” in light of that, and also the fact that word was first put forth about its release in June 2020, at which point it was noted that it was the band’s first outing with Ben Price on drums alongside Jay Cardinell‘s vocals and guitar.

I don’t know if Monumentum has been finished for two years and sat on waiting to be issued, but “The Disk” lumbers forth with timeless weight at its core and a deathsludge lurch to coincide. At eight minutes, it’s one of I-don’t-know-how-many songs on the forthcoming collection, and its impact is near immediate in the stick-in-your-eye snare and massive, raw sounding crush that ensues, but it’s worth listening for the angularity that emerges in the last couple minutes as well; “The Disk” has plenty of it but is not at all limited to bludgeoning. Somewhere between compression sickness and blister-raised burn, the duo drive their point across in twisted, dense thud and rot-smelling resonance. There’s something dead in the woods. Always.

And by that I mean “enjoy”:

Foehammer, “The Disk” track premiere

Jay Cardinell on “The Disk” and Monumentum:

“Lyrically, “The Disk” is based on a Jorge Luis Borges short story, El Disco, a surrealist piece wherein two men are struggling for control of an ancient artifact, The Disk Of Odin. I am a big fan of Borges and this story in particular struck me and I wanted to try to evoke the feeling through the song. As for the songwriting, “The Disk” is one where Ben and I really came together and the songwriting is about 50% from each of us.”

Monumentum is a term that just came into my brain like a lightning bolt. Upon researching it, I found Monumentum was a Latin word used by the Romans in their carvings, especially when listing the achievements of an Emperor. The word itself can have varied meanings such as “remembrance”, “tomb” or literally “monument.”

Pre-order physical: http://silentpendulumrecords.com

Pre-order digital: https://silentpendulumrecords.bandcamp.com/

Foehammer’s new album Monumentum will be released November 18th on Silent Pendulum Records. Engineered and mixed by Foehammer drummer Ben Price. Mastered by James Plotkin.

Monumentum follows a self-titled demo (2014), a self-titled EP (2015, Australopithecus Records), and a 2XLP titled Second Sight (2018, Australopithecus Records).

Foehammer is:
Jay Cardinell (guitars, vocals)
Ben Price (drums)

https://www.facebook.com/foehammerva/
https://www.instagram.com/foehammer_band/
https://foehammer.bandcamp.com/

http://www.facebook.com/SilentPendulumRecords
https://www.instagram.com/silent_pendulum_records/
https://silentpendulumrecords.bandcamp.com/

Foehammer, Second Sight (2018)

I don’t remember the last time I did three voice breaks on a show, and while I’m of the general opinion that the less the universe hears my voice the better off said universe will likely be for not having heard me invariably say something stupid, I did turn in three VTs for this episode. Truth is I’ve been pretty dug in as regards this show — music, music, music — and I think that’s a winning philosophy for life in general, if one that doesn’t necessarily take advantage of the full potentialities of radio as a format. Gimme Metal have been kind enough to let me do 90 episodes (so far!) of this show. Making some effort to meet that audience halfway seems like the least my contrarian ass can do.

Maybe that’s just me getting old. Whatever. I sucked at being young anyway.

Further to that “making an effort thing,” I’ve tried last episode and this one specifically to include a few staples of stoner/heavy/doom/psych/whatever that even if people don’t know hopefully they can latch onto. Last ep started with Acid King, this one leads with Goatsnake. There’s Black Sabbath, Stoned Jesus, Sungrazer along the way before the playlist really digs into new stuff. And even some of that — My Sleeping Karma, Abrams, Elephant Tree — is from known parties. I don’t know. I’m trying my best here. I was happy to include the Guhts song that premiered, and CB3 finally putting out “To Space and Away” from their new record is a gift. This won’t be the last time I play that song, I’m sure.

Thanks if you listen and thanks for reading.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 08.05.22 (VT = voice track)

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Aug. 19 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

Gmme Metal website

The Obelisk on Facebook

The word is good from Virginian crushers Foehammer, whose very, very, very heavy debut album, Second Sight (review here), turned four in April. The band have signed to Silent Pendulum Records, whose somewhat confusing but nonetheless intriguing logo you can see below. Cool band gets someone to help them with a release? Always welcome news as far as I’m concerned.

While they’ve been playing shows in the interim as much as possible and generally doing the thing, last I heard from Foehammer was in June 2020, at which point the duo of guitarist/vocalist Jay Cardinell and drummer/recording engineer Ben Price were unveiling the cover art of their second full-length, titled Monumentum, which was given a summer 2020 release date.

As far as I can tell, that album hasn’t come out yet. It goes without saying that the two years between then and now have been laced with extenuating circumstances — that’s before you get to monkeypox, rising cost of everything, etc. — so if it’s out there somewhere or if it was out and taken back ahead of a pressing through Silent Pendulum, fair enough. I miss shit all the time and have been telling you for years I’m not very good at this; so it goes.

But if it’s the case that Monumentum — or whatever it’s going to be called by the time it comes out, and whatever artwork it will have — has been held back all this time, the band must be furiously restless by now to get it out. Imagine sitting on a record for two years. Foehammer aren’t a tour-for-three-months-straight kind of act or anything, but just on general principle, two years later, the itch to get the songs out there must be significant.

If they can be patient, I can too. No release date included below, but it’ll be when it’ll be.

This from socials:

Very happy to announce Foehammer will be joining the family of bands at Silent Pendulum Records @silent_pendulum_records !! Mike has been a long time supporter of the band and this just means the world to us.

Keep your eyes peeled for more announcements soon, and follow the link in the comments to check out the rest of their sick roster! https://silentpendulumrecords.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/foehammerva/
https://www.instagram.com/foehammer_band/
https://foehammer.bandcamp.com/

http://www.facebook.com/SilentPendulumRecords
https://www.instagram.com/silent_pendulum_records/
https://silentpendulumrecords.bandcamp.com/

Foehammer, Second Sight (2018)

Nearly two years ago, Descendants of Crom IV did a full unveiling of its lineup for a fest set to take place that October. You know the story from there. That’s the bad news. Good news is that many of the acts announced for that lineup are carrying over to this one. And as that includes the likes of Rebreather, Heavy Temple, Horseburner, Horehound (yeah that’s right; I know it’s her festival; I actually think her band is good), Orodruin and Evoken, the news is even better. The roster of acts was announced the other day, but the schedule is new info — I happen to be somebody who appreciates a good timetable — and tickets are on sale as of right… now.

Hey, you know what? You go right ahead and you have yourself a great day. Maybe that means buying tickets for a thing? Don’t you kind of want to get it all in as quickly as possible before the next variant hits and we’re huddled down again, desperately hoping Costco has the Scott back in stock while trying not to breathe or to inhale from the side of our mouth that that person is standing way too close on? I do. Spend that fucking money.

From the ticket page:

DESCENDANTS OF CROM IV

A GATHERING OF THE HEAVY UNDERGROUND

Tickets: https://www.eventcreate.com/e/dociv

Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/437759083832580

The fourth annual Descendants of Crom, A Gathering of the Heavy Underground, will be held again this year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on both floors of Cattivo Nightclub. The events begin early Friday evening and are followed by an all-dayer Saturday.

The underground scene of heavy music is healthy and Pittsburgh is the perfect location to host such an event. We’re feeding great regional bands to a hungry crowd and utilizing legendary, international fan-favorites to entice music fans in the door with the support of our amazing local artists. Descendants of Crom began in 2017 and has been a strong contender among other established underground music festivals. We aspire to become the premier music event of the Northeast and I invite you to become part of the 2022 event! After all, we are all Descendants of Crom.

This event is 21+, ID Required
Your commitment now helps us prepare better so, mark your calendars and get your tickets today!

LOCATION
Cattivo
146 44th St, Pittsburgh, PA 15201

DATE & TIME
June 3, 2022, 6:30 PM – June 4, 2022 – 11:30 PM

SCHEDULE

6:30 PM
FRIDAY, JUNE 3
Makeshift Urn 7:00 PM
Pillars 7:45 PM
Heavy Temple 8:30 PM
Howling Giant 9:15 PM
Rebreather 10:00 PM
Orodruin 10:45 PM

4:00 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 4
We, the Creature 4:30 PM
Quiet Man 5:05 PM
Tel 5:40 PM
The Long Hunt 6:15 PM
Witching 6:50 PM
Ironflame 7:25 PM
Horehound 8:00 PM
Foehammer 8:35 PM
Bridesmaid 9:10 PM
Frayle 9:45 PM
Horseburner 10:20 PM
Evoken 11:00 PM

https://www.eventcreate.com/e/dociv
https://www.facebook.com/DescendantsOfCrom/
www.instagram.com/descendantsofcrom/
http://descendantsofcrom.com

Rebreather, “Drown” (feat. Frayle) official video

Worried that you don’t see an exact release date for Foehammer‘s new album, Monumentum? Don’t sweat it — I’m sure you’ll feel the ground shaking well in advance of the record’s arrival sometime this summer. The Northern Virginian rumble-riffers haven’t been heard from much since their 2018 debut, Second Sight (review here), and there have been some lineup changes to perhaps account for some of that. Monumentum finds Foehammer working as the two-piece of founding guitarist/vocalist Jay Cardinell and new drummer/recording engineer Ben Price. I can’t profess to having heard any of the record as yet — and golly, I’d be glad to — but the suitably grim cover art has been unveiled and whenever it might actually show up, Monumentum will be a welcome arrival as far as I’m concerned.

If you need a refresher as to why, you’ll find the Second Sight Bandcamp stream at the bottom of this post.

Heavy days call for massive riffs, and Foehammer bring those to bear with expertly-wielded crawling tempos and a deathly ferocity that they quickly made their own. As to what their new incarnation might hold, I expect misery to persist and be perhaps all the more resonant as the band’s recording process has become self-contained. They may grow even more massive-sounding as they dig into their own mire of tone. Can’t wait.

Here’s their announcement, quick and to the point:

Foehammer – Monumentum

Foehammer return from the depths, announcing their sophomore full-length and first new material in two years, Monumentum. Returning listeners will find the band going down new darkened paths, while still staying true to their funereal drone roots.

This album is the first to feature Ben Price (At the Graves, Immiseration, Elagabalus) at the drumset (and engineering/mixing) as well as returning guitarist and vocalist Jay Cardinell.

Featuring original artwork and design respectively by Rebecca and Brian Magar (Wailing Wizard Art, Cultic, The Owls [ANWTS]).

https://www.facebook.com/foehammerva/
https://foehammer.bandcamp.com/

Foehammer, Second Sight (2018)