Hammerhead's Music Full Of Noise And Rage

Club preview

Hammerhead, alternative rock, with the Putters, Godheadsilo and Voodoo Gearshift, Thursday night at 9:30 p.m. at the Off Ramp, 109 Eastlake Ave. $6. 628-0232. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Hammerhead's name is an appropriate description of the trio's music. But not as fitting, perhaps, as Hammer On Your Head.

Like its labelmates on Minneapolis-based noise merchants Amphetamine Reptile, Hammerhead play a vicious brand of heavy rock that gives most so-called "alternative" rock fans a headache. The songs on the band's new album, "Into the Vortex," explode like pop supernovas - the music is packed so densely that it bursts into massive fireballs of rage.

Even when things get rather tuneful on songs like "Zesta" and "Double Negative," the approach is still a frontal assault. Lyrically, things continue where the previous album "Ethereal Killers," left off. (It was built around songs about murderers who videotape their crimes, and the lives of Midwest skinheads.

Guitarist-singer Paul Sanders said the Hammerhead sound developed by taking most contemporary music and turning it into sludge. "A noise band is pretty much what we are," he said, saying the band's primary influences were punk bands like the Ramones and bands on the SST label such as Black Flag, as well as roots-punk acts like X and Meat Puppets.

"We've played all kinds of music through that sound, every kind of music on the radio," Sanders continued. "We've been together eight years; we read off each other, and our sound is pretty much down." Other stylistic elements include jazz - which accounts for their Helmet-style rhythmic precision and cleanliness - and commercial pop. Drummer Jeff Mooridian, Sanders said, was once a big fan of synth-pop pretty boys Echo and the Bunnymen.

As for current bands with whom Hammerhead feels an affinity, Sanders points enthusiastically to Minneapolis scum-rockers the Cows, as well as Helmet and former Seattleites, the Melvins. "We're all big B52s fans, but we're not sure if we have much of an affinity with them," Sanders quipped.

Hammerhead's birth in Fargo, North Dakota, followed several years of the members' playing together in various outfits. Sanders and Mooridian formed "a pretty bad punk band" in high school, and then, when they went to college, ended up living in the same house. Bassist Paul Erickson came along in 1990.

Sanders said that Hammerhead's plans include a European tour in May, and domestic touring up until the recording of a third album in the fall.