Šlágry

Šlágry (English title: Schlager) is the third studio album by Czech black metal band Master's Hammer, released in 1995 by a now-defunct subsidiary of Osmose Productions, Kron-H, specialized in more experimental outputs than Osmose itself. Greatly contrasting with the sonority of the band's previous releases, Šlágry sees them "virtually abandon[ing] the operatic black metal of previous releases in favor of modernist electronic music", and "shar[ing] publishing credits with Carl Czerny, Otto Katz and Giuseppe Verdi, mixing bits of metal, folk and musique concrète into a style based on the classical avant-garde", as they put it in the album's liner notes. In fact, "Hlava modernistova" is the only black metal-oriented track of the entire album.

Other Master's Hammer members Necrocock, Monster, Mirek Valenta and Silenthell are noticeably absent from the album; only vocalist Franta Štorm and keyboardist Vlasta Voral took part in its recording.

On the album's liner notes the band also stated that they planned a follow-up to Šlágry, entitled Šlágry II, that would "rely more on professional opera singers and orchestra players"; however, the band broke up a couple of months after the album came out, and only returned to active in 2009 with the release of Mantras. It is currently unknown if the band still plans to work on Šlágry II.

Lyrical and musical inspirations
The only tracks of the album written by the band itself are "Indiánská píseň hrůzy" (whose lyrics were inspired by a Czech folksong, according to Franta Štorm on the album's liner notes) and "Hlava modernistova"; all the remaining are covers of old-fashioned pieces.

A cover of Aram Khachaturian's famous suite "Sabre Dance", originally present in his ballet Gayane.
 * "Šavlový tanec"

Covers of Czech folk songs.
 * "Ach, synku, synku" and "Půjdem spolu do Betléma"

As the title says, a short cover of Carl Czerny's Op. 849.
 * "Carl Czerny, Op. 849"

A cover of Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll Music". Master's Hammer took Berry's vocals from the original version and greatly slowed their pitch, superimposing them over a new instrumental made by them.
 * "Rock and Roll Music"

A poem of authorship unknown, popularized by Jaroslav Hašek's unfinished novel The Good Soldier Švejk.
 * "Vzpomínám na zlaté časy"

An instrumental iteration of the "Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate" chorus from Giuseppe Verdi's 1841 opera Nabucco.
 * "Nabucco"

Covers
Ukrainian black metal band Drudkh covered "Indiánská píseň hrůzy" on their 2010 EP Slavonic Chronicles.

Personnel

 * František "Franta" Štorm – vocals, guitars, drums, production
 * Vlastimil "Vlasta" Voral – keyboards

Reception
Ian Christe wrote that "Master's Hammer […] have become witty musique moderne composers with Šlágry, trading in distortion for traditional orchestral instrumentation while keeping oddball arrangements that make metal appealing". According to him, "the mixed-up metal influences were part of an exit strategy". Writing for Toilet ov Hell, Ben Serna-Grey stated that "Šlágry is like a nightmare vision of what someone would imagine when they hear about people who are into both classical and metal music, yet seem to fundamentally misunderstand exactly what metal sounds like", comparing the album's sonority favorably to the works of John Cage and Harry Partch.