Former HAVOK and MACHINE HEAD guitarist Reece Scruggs has a band of his own. BURNING HAMMER have signed to Nefarious Industries and released their first single, "Rabid Lycanthropy", as a lyric video. A debut album is being finished now and is due in early 2027.
Scruggs handles guitars and lead vocals. He is joined by bassist Noah Martin (ARSIS, WOLVEN SPIRIT, ex-LILITU) and drummer Stefen Burns (MONOLITH), who also produced, mixed and mastered "Rabid Lycanthropy" at B&M Studios in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.
Scruggs describes the project as something born "in a very dark and uncertain time", an outlet that gave him the chance to see a vision through that is entirely his own. His summary of the sound: "It's too death to be thrash, too thrash to be death." Expect technical leanings over punk song structures, occasional blackened passages and lyrics about the cryptic and the conspiratorial, all wrapped in what he calls a horror-movie package in the spirit of WHITE ZOMBIE's La Sexorcisto. "I'm not reinventing the wheel here," he adds. "All I'm doing is presenting my brand of tire."
Martin says he and Scruggs had wanted to work together ever since HAVOK and ARSIS crossed paths on tour, and describes the result as a collision of thrash, early Shrapnel-style guitar heroics and the blunt force of death metal. The album will also feature a string of guest solos from the band's friends.
More details on the debut are promised over the coming weeks.
BURNING HAMMER are:
- Reece Scruggs — guitar, vocals
- Noah Martin — bass
- Stefen Burns — drums
Follow BURNING HAMMER: Instagram · Nefarious Industries · Bandcamp (label)