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The hammer-on was always a joke during my high school and college years, a cheesy heavy metal signifier on par with the devil’s-horn gesture and spandex pants. But for New York art-rocker Marnie Stern the hammer-on is bread and butter. She picked up the techqnique after watching a Don Caballero video, and many of the reviews and articles I’ve read about her use the term “shredder” without irony. Her recent debut album, In Advance of the Broken Arm (Kill Rock Stars), alternately threads in and globs on the technique on just about every song (though it sounds like there’s quite a bit of multitracking going on, so I can’t always be sure what’s what). It helps that she’s got Hella drummer Zach Hill (as well as bassist and keyboardist John-Reed Thompson) pounding away behind her, as their hard-charging precision helps shape Stern’s distinctively weird songs.
