Hammok - When Does This Become Our Scene

“Gnarly noise-rock straight outta Norway.” – Revolver

“Hammok [are] not merely as noise-rock newcomers, but also erudite students of the genre who hit the ground running.” – Pitchfork

“[Hammok] kick up a brisk and invigorating racket that reminds me of Euro post-hardcore acts like Refused and Birds In Row, or even those old Queens Of The Stone Age tracks with Nick Oliveri on lead vocals.” – Stereogum

Norway’s Hammok will release When Does This Place Become Our Scene, their invigorating new album, this Friday via Sargent House. Today, they present “Blast Off (Blast Off) Blast Off,” a frenetic single with a lively video to match. “Blast Off (Blast Off) Blast Off” is an album standout, and was the first skeleton key that Tobias Osland wrote by accident. It seemed to arrive out of nowhere, and within a few hours he had a complete demo, driven by a new approach to his guitar-playing — a lacerating lead part that sounds like computers sputtering to life. A strange, alien sound, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for a synth instead of a guitar. 

Osland elaborates on the accompanying video: “The video for ‘Blast Off’ is made from footage from what we call ‘The Hammok House Party.’ For every single release throughout this campaign, we have thrown an invite-only house party show. This was to celebrate the song coming out, but most importantly to create real space for our community and our scene, to practice what this album is all about. Finding your people, building a home, building a scene.”

Hammok is the trio of vocalist/guitarist Tobias Osland, drummer Ferdinand Aasheim, and bassist Ole Benjamin Thomassen. When Does This Place Become Our Scene is driven by their idiosyncratic blend of pop production and the vivacious energy of hardcore. Throughout, experimental textures fully blossom, placing them on the vanguard of forward-thinking punk. It ranges from tongue-in-cheek ragers to tracks that blend caustic tones with their love for emo and indie. 

This is an album that captures polarities of underground intensity and pop sensibility. When Does This Place Become Our Scene is equal parts scream-along cathartic and nod-along infectious.