Next up on Rock Day is Sweden’s first ever Billboard Mainstream Rock #1!
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[5.86]
Alfred Soto: Hooks in place, vocals kept reasonably in key, guitars aflutter, “Square Hammer” is one of the better pop metal tunes of the last decade (granted, Dead Sara wrote three of them). The riff even evokes “Sister Havana” if that sort of thing gets you excited. Don’t listen too closely — it’s a silly thing.
[7]
Tim de Reuse: An awkward emulation of hard rock, with all edges sanded off with pomp and flourish, all references to the occult made relatively easy to swallow, and all choruses ending with an honest-to-god chant of “right here, right now.” This song is very easy to be way too cool for, but it’s also unfortunately too catchy, well-composed, and good-spirited to not get stuck in your head.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: A rock song with an almost schlager quality to its melody is relevant to my interests, even if it’s Satanic in intent, and the organ riff that opens the song and recurs throughout reminds me of the intro to “Dansa i Neon” by Lena Philipsson, which is really relevant to my interests, albeit so totally 2011. It’s a fun gimmick that probably wasn’t intended to even be a gimmick. It wouldn’t have even scared my great-great-grandmother, but if the illusion and the riffs get a bunch of metal kids off, I’d sooner get in the mosh pit than laugh at them.
[7]
Micha Cavaseno: Ghost are one of those bands that appeal to the very logical idea that metal had to return to “the tunes” after the hunt for extremity in the ’80s and ’90s, which pursued speed, technique, harshness and similar elements in all sorts of varieties, petered out. If we’re being frank, most productive work in “metal” in this millennium came from acts based out of the hardcore scene, whereas metal has become the domain of classic rock dudes who insist they have some “edge.” The most edgy thing about “Square Hammer” is Emeritus singing a bunch of obvious Freemasonic tropes, the kind of occultnik nerd-out that’d certainly fit on any of the classic albums that Ghost are so often indebted to. That said, the cheesy organ melody is a bit too “kooky” and beyond that there’s nothing really catchy here. If you’re going to be the guys who turn down the noise, the least you could do is have something worth humming.
[4]
Iain Mew: It recalls the old hammer-nails thing in so far as once it gets into organ and thumping drums stride via a guitar snarl (i.e. about one second in) nothing else about it is at any point surprising. It goes the well-trod path, it goes it well enough, it denies the possibility of anything else happening; “powers clandestine” can only go so far on something that shouts them this obviously.
[5]
Ryo Miyauchi: Too stiff to work as silly psych pop and too clownish to be solid desert rock, “Square Hammer” compromises Ghost to bring a much washed-up version of what they’re capable of. Even if their older stuff could be summed up as a lite Queens of the Stone Age, at least it was a not-too-bad copy of a better thing.
[4]
Hannah Jocelyn: Based on the cover art/general aesthetic of the band, I was expecting something with top-speed drumming guttural screaming, but it actually sounds more like ’70s arena rock with modern production values. That doesn’t mean it’s safe — a band that’s often described as “Blue Öyster Cult-meets-Abba” is far from the middle of the road — but it’s melodic enough to be accessible. Details like the distant keyboard in the second verse and the harmonies in the outro show the amount of time and effort put into this song, and effort well spent is something I’ll appreciate in any genre.
[7]