Gill garners the office excitement about tonight’s 36 Crazyfists London show and thrusts it in your general direction. C’mon the Crazyfists!

When you and your 10 mates abso-fucking-lutely love a band, you assume that everyone does. Or at least would if they only listened to the album as many times as you. But in reality this isn’t the reality.

Sometimes it just takes time.

Sure, bands like The Darkness and Do Me Bad Things and Towers Of London were suddenly huge, but look at how quickly the rug was pulled and the members slid neatly back into (often involuntary) obscurity. And bands like Machine Head and Amon Amarth have been hammering away for over a decade to achieve the relative success they have (which in the grand scheme of the music industry, or even rock, are still small pies), and so their position is more solid to the storms of fashion-fickle faddists.

Which brings us to 36 Crazyfists. That’s right, the band you thought were just another metalcore band three years ago, and have ignored since (but probably dance like a bastard to unknowing when ‘Bloodworks’ or ‘Slit Wrist Theory’ comes on in a club). The band started in 1994 – 15 years ago! – in Alaska, toured ceaselessly since and have released four albums along the way. They have families and jobs and kids, but never has the flame dimmed.

And it seems that their just desserts might well be the awesome slow-burn throne of a self-sustaining career.

It baffles most of the Hammer staff and our friends that 36 Crazyfists aren’t as big as Atreyu or Underoath or Mastodon or… fucking anyone! It just didn’t seem to add up that a band who had consistently released such great records with such crossover appeal, been so awesome onstage and worked so fucking hard in the face of mounting odds, wouldn’t become the new Machine Head or steal Killswitch’s crown.

So we had to wait. 36 Crazyfists have just sold out their London show at the Electric Ballroom – a 1,100 capacity venue – and their last album, ‘The Tide And Its Takers’ even hit the Billboard chart.

Could it be that the patience and loyalty of a slowly growing fanbase is about to reach critical mass and push these worthy Americans into metal’s premier league? The smart money says Yessington Thomas, double jug of aye aye Captain Definitely.