Band:	Gallhammer
Album:	The End
Style:	Crust Punk, Black metal
Release date:	May 2011

01. The End
02. Rubbish CG202
03. Aberration
04. Sober
05. Entropy G35
06. Wander
07. 108=7/T-NA

Whatever form of media or art I've encountered hailing from Japan has been... rather weird, to say the least. I'm talking about their unique commercials and that phenomenon we nowadays dubbed "Japanese tentacle porn", just to name a few. Music-wise, this country also houses a small anomaly in the form of an all-girl black metal band, known as Gallhammer (obvious rip-off of the name Hellhammer is obvious?), and these galls have been getting quite some attention lately. I don't know if it's because people genuinely like what the band does, or is it simply some form of shock value seeing little girls blasting one of the most extreme forms of music nowadays? Whatever the reason, The End is not deserving of attention. In fact, what it deserves is to be either buried some ten thousand feet beneath the ground or, pardon my meme usage, killed with fire.

Take the primitive and minimalist musicianship of Hellhammer, slap on some pseudo-horrifying atmosphere, sparkle a bit of crust punk tempos, put a fair amount of monstrously monotonous wannabe extreme doom, add a whole ton of mind-numbing repetitiveness and you've got the album nicely summed up. If there ever was potential for this album to be decent, it was lost the second Gallhammer decided to chug a single, very primitive three-note riff for the duration of almost the entire song. This is even somewhat tolerable on faster tracks, which are noticeably shorter, but sitting through 12 minutes of "Wander" is a feat of epic proportions. I was actually expecting someone to pat me on the back and say: "Good job, soldier, you made it" for going through that entire track.

And even after 2 full-lengths, the performance still sounds demo-tape amateurish, with the vocals deserving a special mention. Namely, they sound more like an angry chick throwing up her last glass of Jack Daniels rather than professionally attempted growls/shrieks. There are also some squealing girly shouts on "Aberration", "Sober" and "Entropy G35" that serve no purpose other than to annoy the listener further. Even if I were to forget how the drums usually sound like tin cans being smacked by tree branches, or the way that monstrously distorted bass startlingly reminds me of the first time my no-talent ass attempted to play something on this instrument, I can't forget how soulless and effortless everything sounds. I'm assuming Gallhammer wanted to invoke a morbid, vile atmosphere, but all they achieved was a pretty non-comical parody of every band that ever played raw black metal.

Still, girls, you get my heartfelt congratulations. Your album now holds the lowest score I've even given in any review, and it will probably stay that way for a long time. Avoid this album like the plague, ladies and gentlemen, or like Japanese rapist tentacles. Whichever you're frightened more of.