Songhammer has released its debut album and video. (Contributed Image)
Songhammer might have released the most epic album of 2013.
Want proof? The first song on the group’s debut full-length “World of Songhammer,” which came out Tuesday, Oct. 22, is called “Songhammer Always Wins.”
Throughout the album the group goes on to fight bad guys, dragons and tell stories from the perspective of angry pandas.
The band’s genesis came from Songhammer members Dustin Miller (a.k.a. CroonHammer) and Ben Stewart (a.k.a. ShredHammer) collaborating to enter the BlizzCon 2011 International Songwriting Competition, which they went on to win. BlizzCon, which is coming up in Anaheim in early November, is the convention for everything Blizzard Entertainment does, including the massively multiplayer online role playing game “World of Warcraft.”
Songhammer is more than just a band, too. It has a popular guild in the “World of Warcraft” universe, where the focus is on being positive and having fun.
The music follows the same ideals. There are metal songs, pop songs, songs that draw from the influences of Queen and Muse and Mumford and Sons and more. Miller, of Fontana, and Stewart, of Riverside, met in a music class at Riverside City College.
I’ll have more about the band’s music in an interview that will be published in the coming weeks, but I wanted to share the video for “Death Is on the Way.”
“We wanted it to sound like this old radio program,” Stewart said.
The video itself, directed by John Leonetti, is part silent film, part western and all awesome.
“It’s more like silent movie meets Buck Rogers in the 1980s,” Stewart said.
Fun fact: In the video, Death is played by Devanand Bassanoo, Stewart’s former bandmate in their metal band Conspiracy of Thought. Not only did he choreograph the big fight scene, but he’s also performing with Songhammer now.
You can check out more from Songhammer at www.songhammer.com.