Hammok – When Does This Place Become Our Scene

Description

Hammok were far from home and yet had finally found where they belonged. Somewhere in the middle of Europe, vocalist/guitarist Tobias Osland beganwriting a new song, reflecting on the international hardcore communities that had embraced the band with open arms. He and his bandmates drummerFerdinand Aasheim and bassist Ole Benjamin Thomassen were overwhelmed, stepping out from Oslos small, tight-knit alternative circles and meetingfans across the continent. Osland carried this new song with him on the road, titling it The Scene as he sang: When does a space become a scene, whendoes this place become our scene. He immediately knew it would become the title of Hammoks new album. When Does This Place Become Our Scene, thetrios sophomore outing and first release for Sargent House, captures three musicians who once felt outside looking in now stepping fully into their own.Osland and Aasheim first cut their teeth together as pre-teens playing pop-punk and hanging out at a skatepark in their hometown an hour outside Oslo. Theywere in and out of other projects, eventually meeting Thomassen in a band that collapsed around the pandemic. Just before lockdown, and now in their 20s,the three moved in together, and spent their time in isolation launching Hammok as we now know it. While live shows are usually paramount for bands inheavy music, Hammok didnt have the option to perform in public. They learned how to be a band together by writing and recording, yielding a new sense ofadventurousness in their music. You begin to think sonically, in layers and production, instead of in breakdowns that will make people mosh and go crazy,Osland explains. On When Does This Place Become Our Scene, their idiosyncratic blend of pop production, the vivacious energy of hardcore, andexperimental textures fully blossoms, placing them on the vanguard of forward-thinking punk.
Most of the songs arrived fast in an inspired burst, but the recording was laborious, with Osland calling the production efforts the hardest thing Ive done inmy life. Armed with a set of impressive demos and tasked with refining and expanding their sound, Hammok tweaked and explored until they arrived atsomething that held all their impulses at once volatile, hook-driven, and dense with detail. They pushed their noise-rock, hardcore and metal foundationsinto broader, more dynamic territory weaving industrial abrasion, hip-hop pulse, synth textures, and progressive turns into classic punk urgency. Lyrically,
When Does This Place Become Our Scene grapples with existing in hardcores lineage and social politics, but also broader paradigms, like coming of age in anera shaped by hyperconnection and digital life. In balancing the polarities of underground intensity and pop sensibility, they arrived at an album equal partsscream-along cathartic and nod-along infectious.
To Hammok, the twists and turns cohere into a journey, a process of reaching out further for connection. A central idea was: What does it mean to be alone?Osland says. Is it a strength? Do you feel a part of something? A community? When Does This Place Become Our Scene is an invitation the sound of aband pouring all of themselves into this new music, promising an audience that this communication, this back and forth, is a worthwhile exchange.

Tracklist

1. The Scene
2. Semi-Automatic Machines
3. Gooning for Free
4. Blast Off (Blast Off) Blast Off
5. BANG
6. Groundbreaker
7. Tap Water
8. CND
9. Thirst
10. When the Kids Are Too Old to Cause a Scene
11. Confidence of a Beaten Horse
12. For My Friends