Sergeant Thunderhoof say that the making of The Ghost of Badon Hill was an exercise in restraint, but the resultant sound is just as epic as ever.
Mark Sayer, the U.K. rockers’ founding guitarist, says that following the towering gloom of their 2022 double album The Sceptred Veilthe veteran group felt like they needed to streamline their approach.
With The Ghost of Badon Hillthey’ve achieved that in a technical sense – limiting the record to a single piece of vinyl – but still, none of its six songs of sorrow-stirring, spaciously chorded stoner-doom sits beneath the five-minute mark; the closing gloom-swing of Beyond the Hill actually tops out at 10½ minutes.
One major difference is that they’ve slimmed down on ultra-extended lead sections after hearing feedback that things had gotten “a little self-indulgent” over the years.
“We were just writing music, man,” Sayer says with a laugh. “Not so much on this album, but there’d been three-minute (instrumental) passages or solos, which were just ridiculous – and knackering to play live! It was like, ‘Oof, don’t stick that in the beginning of the set because that’ll blow me right out of the water to start off with.’ ”
The Ghost of Badon Hill was recorded at the group’s own Stage 2 Studios in Bath, which is operated by vocalist Daniel Flitcroft.
While their frontman scripted out a concept album based on Arthurian mysticism, Sayer and co-guitarist Josh Gallop were tapping into the magic of their signature Hoof cabinets – which happened to be built by their bandmate’s father.
For the past decade, the elder Flitcroft has been constructing acoustically monstrous-sounding custom cabs out of resonant birch plywood. He semi-recently began retailing casings to U.K. consumers, too, but you’ll have to load up your own speakers.
If you want to go all-in on the Thunderhoof sound, Sayer’s got his wired-up with a classic set of Celestion G12T-75s. “It’s like an amphitheater inside,” the guitarist says of the heft of his Hoof cab, which he hooks up to a modded JCM2000 TSL 100 and a Cort MGM-1 six-string.
Indeed, Sayer and Gallop’s riffs’ll blow your hair back to medieval times throughout The Ghost of Badon Hillwhether they’re powering through swampy pull-off motifs (The Orb of Octavia) or palm-muted metal melancholia (Blood Moon).
Sayer further shouts out Salvation for the Soulthe record’s most tempo-juiced choogle, as “an absolute tank of a song.” The leanly arpeggiated solo he cut off the cuff, though, is a bit of a sticking point with him.
“I’m a bit miffed, because I feel the end of the solo is a bit weak,” he says, adding that he’s since restructured its closing melody. He adds with mock-derision of printing the primordial take: “I hate that we committed to it.”
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