So many bands continue to expand, to get more ambitious and exploratory as they progress in their careers. Sometimes it works; oftentimes in the loose and shaggy folds of a new direction the spark that made the band come alive for many listeners gets lost along the way. Somerset, UK’s Sergeant Thunderhoof have a lot to prove after their barnburner of an album in 2022’s EOY charter This Sceptered Veil, and their approach was to get more compact, more focused on that album’s successes and distill the essence of everything I love about the band into 45 minutes of pure rock heaven. So yeah…The Ghost of Badon Hill is not only great, but possibly the best album the band have released to date. My only problem is going to be figuring out just how high to put it on my list come December.
Describing Sergeant Thunderhoof is hard: lyrically and conceptually they dig into their country’s history, looking at actual events, mythology and folklore for inspiration. Musically it’s a simmering pot of influences: strong hints of psychedelic, progressive stoner rock combine with elements of doom and anthemic hard rock. In other words very much in my wheelhouse. The Ghost of Badon Hill takes as its inspiration the Battle of Badon, thought to have taken place in the late 5th/early 6th century AD between the Britons and Anglo-Saxons. The martial vibe is evident up front on opening track “Badon” as rolling snares pick up the march behind a series of clean and acoustic guitars. It’s an opening track full of building pressure, a track that treads carefully until it explodes with the distortion, maintaining regality by keeping the tempo at the same moderate pace and really accentuating the vocal prowess of Dan Flitcroft, who has fast become one of my favorite vocalists in rock. He has a beautiful soaring voice, and makes these great melodic choices in his lines that immediately identify the tracks as Sergeant Thunderhoof music just as much as the instrumentation.
With only 45 minutes to work with, The Ghost of Badon Hill has a lot to do to get its point across, and each song excels at bringing the best of the band out. “Blood Moon” stands out as an early favorite; the guitar team of Mark Sayer and Josh Gallop (who also engineered and mixed the album) drive the song forward with huge, full power chords that lift the melodic moments high above the battlements. Drummer Darren Ashman gets to shine in the intro to “Salvation For The Soul,” another driving rock anthem. Folks looking at that concise runtime and lamenting the lack of epics need not fear: closer “Beyond The HIll” will give you plenty at almost 11 minutes, and mid-album melodic doom cruncher “The Orb of Octavia” gets close to nine minutes. Both stand out as majestic, sprawling tunes that beautifully capture Sergeant Thunderhoof’s ability to evoke a sense of weight and faded grandeur in their music. Does it make sense for me to say their music drives the narrative just as much as the lyrics? That’s the feeling I get listening to something like “Beyond The Hill” in particular.
In the past few years I’ve started to hone in on the specifics within stoner and progressive rock that truly resonate with me in order to separate the chaff and get to the good stuff. Over the course of their past studio albums (including the awesome “Delicate Sound of Thunderhoof” acoustic album) Sergeant Thunderhoof have amply demonstrated they have everything to move them to the upper echelon of heavy progressive, emotive hard rock and metal. The Ghost of Badon Hill not only solidifies that standing, but brushes off even more of the wannabes and pretenders to the throne.
– Chris
The Ghost Of Badon Hill is available November 15 from Pale Wizard Records. For more information on Sergeant Thunderhoof, check out their Facebook and Instagram pages.
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