Smash Hit Combo are a wonderfully-named “gamer metal” group from Alsace in France. Their members have a variety of musical backgrounds – rap, hip-hop and thrash – but their sound is very much a metal one. What draws them together, though, is a love for good old-fashioned computer gaming. Their song lyrics are generally violent and raucous yet humorous and pay homage to the likes of Grand Theft Auto and Mario.
The lyrics, by the way, are in French – though the song titles often aren’t. As with bands like Skalmold, it does mean that native speakers lose out on a major part of the music… but it gives you an excuse to brush up on the French you were taught at school and realise that perhaps you will use it in “real life” after all!
The band released their first demo in 2005 (Next Level), followed by Hardcore Gamer, a full album in 2007. Next up, Nolife, appeared in 2009 followed by Reset in 2012 and their most recent – Playmore – in March 2015. So plenty of material to sample!
I just got hold of a copy of Playmore and it’s pretty good stuff. They’ve definitely managed to merge hip-hop in amongst the crashing chords and, on checking their facebook page, they seem to have chosen to name their style “Rapcore”. Think Linkin Park meets The IT Crowd meets the twangy-bass sound of many post-rock style bands. Certainly an interesting combination and a bigger bonus if you speak the lingo and can understand the words.
