Master’s Hammer has not said its last word.
Formed in the Czech Republic in 1987, the band built a reputation in the underground scene until 1995, then disappeared for fourteen years before resurfacing, only to fade away again in 2020. In 2025, Franta Storm (guitar/bass/vocals, Airbrusher, Maldorör Disco), Necrocock (guitar, Kaviar Kavalier), Honza Kapák (drums, Bohemyst, Elusive God, Kaviar Kavalier, Oculus, The Stone…), and Kamil Princ (keyboards, Maldorör Disco) announced their ninth album, Maldorör Disco.
Our first encounter with this new opus is called Andel slizu, an opening track with strangely catchy keyboards overlaid with fairly aggressive vocals, creating a rather contrasting sound, each part being reinforced in turn by other even more surprising elements. Smooth backing vocals meet rough riffs, but the band seems to make the mix coherent, just like on Genesis P. Oridge, which follows and features energetic electro touches that fit quite well with the band’s simple but danceable rhythm. The different voices respond to each other between the original instrumental passages, then it is with Take It Or Leave It’s industrial approach that the band continues its crazy dance, presenting darker passages that border on disturbing. The language barrier also helps to make certain moments more aggressive than others, while choirs attempt to enchant us, then with the eponymous track Maldorör Disco, our journey into weirdness continues. While the foundation is quite motivating, the band manages to make the progression chaotic between layers of keyboards before calming things down to offer Bochnatky a slightly more subdued approach, at least at the beginning. The Heavy Metal-infused leads develop the sharp sound, but the rest of the track is just as crazy as the others, mixing influences with a haphazard hand, and we quickly find ourselves confronted with a jerky rhythm composed of elements that are as coherent as they are improbable. We return to festive and catchy Industrial Metal on Beast Within, once again mixing solid riffs and the contagious madness of the musicians, which could just as easily make us jump around in circles as make us want to bang our heads frantically while savoring these little dark touches. If you’ve been missing colorful combinations of tones, Bicycle Day heralds one of the best moments on the album, bringing to life this experimental but surprisingly masterful instrumental sound, but the vocals are also in on it, and some moments seem to have been written under the influence of acid. I no longer understand anything I hear, but I let myself be carried away to Doppelganger, which exploits heaviness and noisy additions to give us a taste of hell, where nothing ever stops spinning, before finally handing over to El Teide. While the first few seconds allow us to breathe, the rest of the track, which mixes electronic nuances and various ethereal voices, remains in this vein, which nevertheless makes sense and makes me want to join the dance more and more before analyzing the new influences of Slatina, the last track, which I still don’t understand very well, but which is much more accessible than the others and closes the album.
Let’s take a few minutes to collect our thoughts… I still don’t understand half of what I heard on Maldorör Disco, and although much of the sound leaves me skeptical, Master’s Hammer has pulled it off. The band’s evolution is as palpable as this album is odd.
75/100