Hammers Of Misfortune - 17th Street

Hammers Of Misfortune - 17th Street 25 October 2011 01. 317 02. 17th Street 03. The Grain 04. Staring (The 31st Floor) 05. The Day The City Died 06. Romance Valley 07. Summer Tears 08. Grey Wednesday 09. Going Somewhere Hammers Of Misfortune; yes, more commonly known as "that band that used to have that main dude from Slough Feg in it." This band is incredibly eclectic prog-rock that covers quite a bit of ground; ranging from your typical 70's pompish prog to doom, with a few glimpses of old school Misfits-esque horror punk moments. It's something that is quite astonishing upon first listen. Astonishing then turns to overwhelming. Overwhelming turns to irritating. Sure enough, after a fair amount of plays through, this ain't the same album you listened to the first time around. That's both the beauty, and ugly part of this album. 17th Street is an incredibly busy album, which is something that can make this either sound quite clever in it's melodic complexity, or horribly tedious. One moment you may listen to it and notice certain details below the surface that really compliment the whole arrangement, other times that same attention to detail makes the whole thing seem to be more of a messy display of over-indulgence. It goes from a genius tapestry to a jumbled up ball of yarn, then back again. Regardless, it's hard to pigeonhole, I'll at least give them that much. The production is very fitting. It is very modern sounding, but there is definitely an earthy/organic type undertone that really fits the whole classic aesthetic they've got going on. To wrap things up in a nice little package; it sounds like a late 70's prog album modernized for all us young whipper-snappers. Fans of old-school prog will probably see 17th street as more of a glass half-full type album, half-empty for people just looking for some steady melodic hard-rock.