Without sacrificing the punky thrall of their rightfully lauded 2018 demo, Hitter have managed to narrow down the range of their sound and hone their skill to make them the perfect embodiment of the slick and sleazy, hot and hair-brained, hard rock and metal that every working-class kid feels coursing through the synapses of their brain, even before they hear one sweaty note off Kiss’s Destroyer. “Motorcycle Psycho” starts with a tab of acid-dosed blues, which dissolves into a brooding, bloodletting tear down a road paved with bad intentions, and more than a glint of Motorheaded malice in the reflection of its aviators. “Reach Out” rolls on some fat, Thin Lizzy grooves before dropping the listener onto the doormat of “Funeral” for a memorial service of Misfits-esque malevolence and beat-‘um up Budgie grooves. Hard Enough won't let you leave just yet though, as “Glowin’ Up” grabs you by the hair and pulls you back into Deep Purple’s den of frantic, fuzzy R’nB backed by boney, broken piano passes and searing, whip-lash guitars.
Through the combined might and ability of guitarist Adam Luksetich, drummer Ryan Wizniak, and vocalist Hanna Johnson, Hitter have tapped into a long-dormant vein of hot-blooded riffs and perspiration-lubed grooves that made city living feel like less of a chore, and more like... well, living! Their sound will take you back to the days when metal was still a menace to the sanctimonious charlatans of the moral majority. When the mere presence, a Plasmatics or Venom record on a turntable at home could cause the president of the local school board to begin prematurely bolding. The unholy alliance of punk and lion-maned heavy metal that gifted us the great god of thunder Thor, and the spider tamers Cirith Ungol, has once again birthed a heat-seeking, hell-raiser into the cradle of Chicago’s drowsy, de-industrialized, gentry-gratifying malaise. If ever there was a band who were born to shock this town out of its sleepwalking stooper, it’s Hitter
Grab a copy of Hard Enough from Hitter's Bandcamp page, here.
