Before becoming Celtic Frost, Hellhammer innovated underground metal within a short span of time. In Hellhammer, we can hear the influence of Motorhead and, with it, the older rock n’ roll tendencies that were still attached to the developing music genre at the time.
During the course of one year (namely, 1983), Hellhammer released three demos with enough songs to fill out two whole albums. The rupture these demos represent in underground metal is unprecedented and is far more significant than normally perceived. Musically speaking, only Black Sabbath changed rock music more in such a short span of time.
By 1984, Hellhammer was calling it quits, releasing an EP with four songs and mutating into Celtic Frost. The title of that EP was Apocalyptic Raids and can be logically contemplated as the fruit of Hellhammer’s labors. On the other end of the band’s short lifespan is Buried and Forgotten, a bootleg release with a live take of the track “Buried and Forgotten” and a rehearsal recording of “Messiah”.
Within the span of two years, or perhaps even less, Hellhammer’s suffered what most innovative metal bands suffer in their artistic careers. First, they abandoned themselves to wild sounds matching their disturbed consciousnesses, lending an ear to banshees and chimeras. Then, gradually, they realize their music doesn’t fit ANYTHING remotely deemed “correct”.
And so they start to incorporate those “correct” ways of writing music, making riffs, and so on. Fortunately for us, they did not wholly transform themselves into party rockers (we’ll have to wait for Celtic Frost to fall into that trap, in time).
So, the evolution of Hellhammer from this two-song bootleg in ‘83, to their formal EP in ‘84 is one of partial unfoldment, but it is also one of retrograde motion. The first track of Apocalyptic Raids, “The Third of the Storm” [sic], is already a sign of this. The short song is based on a sped-up rock n’ roll riff ala Motorhead, and never does anything else but cater to that sound. Contrast this to the “Buried and Forgotten”, in which technique approaches the “cleaner” methods of NWOBHM, but they are “doom-i-fied” and twisted into something that has not been heard before.
The greatest elements contributing to this effect are not only the choice of riffs and their arrangement but the post-Lemmy (Motorhead vocalist) singing and the war-type drumming that follows the guitar in breaking rhythms rather than speeding through everything. Even in that early live take, we can hear the drums enthusiastically playing powerful and eventful fills.
The whole song is a series of unexpected but suitable changes in speed and texture leading up to a very entertaining atonal solo backed only by the drums and an inaudible bass that I’ll assume exists. It begins at point A and ends at another point B. It has one of the most interesting developments of any Hellhammer song, or of any rock-based music up to that point.
The second song, “Messiah”, was recorded in the rehearsal room, and is more attack than variation. It takes the best and most aggressive from Motorhead and strips it down to where there is only darkness. Some quick pinch harmonics color one of the riffs in the hallmark Tom G. Warrior way, out of the blue and adding spice without becoming a gimmick.
“Messiah” figures in Apocalyptic Raids, with a deeper sound and it is there played at a slower speed. The song remains excellent because its arrangement is so, yet we cannot help but notice the song has been de-fanged, so to say.
While the songs in the Buried and Forgotten bootleg from 1983 are imperfect from the point of view of a technician, they serve us the darkest, dirtiest, and most adventurous facet of Hellhammer.
