Master's Hammer - Mantras
April 6 2010 at 08:51:27 PM
When in Prague...It takes a little while for Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd's Czech Brothers to make their way on to
Mantras. That's the new Master's Hammer album. New Master's Hammer album? Yes.
Mantras.
The band sneaks the creeps in slowly, over a few songs, so by the time the lights come up full blast and you find yourself bookended by "two wild and crazy guys!", your ears have already started making a sex sandwich out of your virgin brain. By then you're so high on the cologne you lose track of the taboo count. Soon (and its amazing how soon) even the disco ball and all that dry humping just feels like an extension of what Master's Hammer has always been about: the metal black augmented by the playful organ, the kettle drum, the gonzo aroma. If you're like me, the band reminds you of two dirty hobos in a public park performing Pinocchio with washtub bass and concertina, kids enthralled. Mom's sixth sense aroused by all that filth and eau de boxcar, ready to cut and run at the first sight of foreskin through the zipper... but for now, charmed (cautiously) by the inventiveness of it all. Cow bell. Groaning hooker. Throbbing bass. Greasy riff sliding through John Carpenter's turf, pulsing archaic techno. Music to fuck up Baseball Furies to.
The vocals are bullhorn loud. Chances are you don't understand a word he's saying. I'm not tempted to crack open the Czech dictionary either. For now it's fun (this music is FUN) to project different messages onto the clamor. "Get on the dancefloor," he signals with his chest hair, reeking of cologne and hidden agenda. "You want good time?"
Mantras. New Master's Hammer? Yes.
[Marcus Garvey]
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Want some translations?
erti (devils)
500 000 angry devils came from hell to seek joy
but none of those dumbsters had a penny in his pocket
By all help they are empty, one wept the other cursed
But what to do none of the devils knew
Old Satan was laughing so much he must held his belly:
I curse you with a 1000 thunders! Where did you all leave your brain!
There rises a small goblin: stupid boys, come here
I am the only perfect creep, I know how to get out of this shit!
You are thirsty - that i trust you, it's hard to grind dry!
Believe me where I am going you can drink for free.
In the cellar of the lords, there is light on, there we gonna go
We'll show them how we can drink Rheinish, Czech, sweet wine!
As one screamed all the beasts: there's nothing over wine!
and so they drank at the sweet ball and hailed the lord of hell.
When the devils were all drunk the cow already crowed
all bottles were empty, Satan arrived to them.
To punish them he put the angry devils in the empty bottles
so that they can not escape he sealed the corks with wire.
500 000 angry devils sealed are now in bottles
and what flows from these bottles champaign is now called
We all were also invited to that great celebration
letting wine flow in our heads, stuffing ourself like gourmets
And when then the sun with cock-crowing flew up to the sky
above our heads in the tight bottle-neck a piece of cork got stuck...
"'Here the king and next the knave.'
'What does it mean?
'A high born gentleman will lick your back.'
'And what comes next?'
'Ha, ha, if you order brandy, we hear in no time
whether you shall have your head on the log,
or a good fortune on your knees!'
Old hag, I am fed up with your talks,
I am an occultist!"
The peculiar wit has always been a particular aspect of Master's Hammer, so it's amazing to follow the snarls and groans and laugh at the same things he does in the lyrics.
I might have to google up those other translations that were floating up on various sites some years back. While on the subject, no love for NWN! for the typos on the lavish LP re-issue. The first thing I saw when I opened the covers was a Norwegian fucking in the middle of the Czech lyrics. I may not know a word of Czech apart from SMRT but come on, how hard is it to get the lyrics right? Fucking careless. I want to be able to roar JMA PEKEL without having to stop at fucking Scandinavian characters in the fucking lyrics for fuck's sake.
(I don't know about "Mantra", the cover artwork is honest enough to tell it's a joke.)