Description
Artist Name: Freight Train Rabbit Killer
Album Name: Hammer of Judgment
Record Label: Haymaker Records
Release Date: Kansas City – April 30, 2022 / Globally – August 26, 2022
Catalog No.: HAY021-LP
Formats: 12-Inch Vinyl / Digital Download
Freight Train Rabbit Killer is a duo made up of Kris Bruders (Freight Train) and Mark Smeltzer (Rabbit Killer). A heavy doom blues American Roots opera about a shaman of the hills and a vigilante bent on justice, they have been performing out of their hometown of Kansas City, Missouri and toured extensively internationally and across the United States. Freight Train Rabbit Killer is storytelling through music, American folk art via gritty blues, electric guitars, suits, and masks. Featured performances at roots rock and blues festivals such as Muddy Roots, Raut Oak, and Clarksdale Mississippi’s Deep Blues Fest have secured a legion of dedicated followers. For this album, the duo is accompanied by accomplished multi-instrumentalists and solo recording artists Jason Beers and Fritz Hutchison, who provide the “hammer” of drums and bass.
The Hammer of Judgment recording session was a one-of-a-kind pseudo-live studio album, utilizing an interactive crowd of dedicated fans experiencing the recording process first-hand with all the bells and whistles of a professional recording studio (isolated tracking, overdubs, post-production, etc.). Tickets were sold in advance and the session was captured at GFM Modern Recording in Blue Springs, Missouri in April 2019. Post-production work, a global pandemic, and national independent record pressing delays pushed the release back three years from the recording date, but the end results made it worth the wait.
Haymaker Records releases doom blues group Freight Train Rabbit Killer‘s new album Hammer of Judgment for Kansas City audiences on April 30, 2022. Hammer of Judgment is the second full-length album for the band and the first full-length on vinyl. Haymaker Records previously partnered with Freight Train Rabbit Killer for the four 7-Inch “Wake Snake Death Dance” record series.
The album features tintype photography from Folk Goblin (Josh Benkert) and album artwork by noted graphics artist Pat Moriarity. The album was pressed in black 12-inch vinyl as well as a limited run of 200 copies on opaque blue vinyl (NOW SOLD OUT). Both versions of the LP include a two-sided color artwork insert and a digital download, which can also be purchased separately. Side B closes out the album with a locked-groove. Check out a full stream of the album on bandcamp.
Side A
1) Pharmaceuticals
2) Eyes of the Steamboat Captain
3) Nodaway County Regulators
4) Conquerors
5) Saw Brother Jesus
6) You Don’t Love Me Anymore
Side B
1) Mush-A-Ring-Around
2) Could But I Won’t
3) Cream Corn
4) Whiskey
5) I Wanna Get Down
6) Will You Dance
