Written By Caine Blackthorn
Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating is officially out, giving the veteran drummer, multi-instrumentalist and doom metal lifer another chapter in a career that has stretched across Pentagram, Raven, The Hounds of Hasselvander and beyond.
Released September 26 through Savant Guarde Records, “Armor Plating” serves as both the title track and lead single from Hasselvander’s new album of the same name.
For a musician whose history reaches deep into heavy rock, doom and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal orbit, Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating feels less like a comeback stunt and more like the continuation of something he never entirely stopped building.
The new material arrives less than a year after 2025’s Fire on the Mountain, making Armor Plating Hasselvander’s second album for Savant Guarde Records in a remarkably short period.
Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating Continues His One-Man Studio Approach
One of the most interesting things about Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating is that the music continues a recording approach Hasselvander has used for decades.
He is not simply sitting behind the drums. Hasselvander has long worked as a multi-instrumentalist, building entire recordings himself and shaping them from the ground up rather than functioning as one component inside a conventional band structure.
That approach became especially important during his time connected to Pentagram.
On Sub-Basement, Hasselvander performed drums, guitar and bass while also co-producing the record with Bobby Liebling.
That ability to create an entire sonic environment alone became one of the more distinctive elements of his musical identity.
Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating continues that tradition, drawing from decades of heavy rock and doom experience while keeping the focus firmly on Hasselvander’s own musical instincts.
A Career Running Through Pentagram and Raven
The name Joe Hasselvander may not carry the instant mainstream recognition of some metal veterans, but his fingerprints sit across several important corners of heavy music.
His history with Pentagram stretches back decades, placing him inside one of American doom metal’s most influential lineages.
He later became a longtime member of Raven, one of the foundational bands associated with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
That combination alone gives Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating a fairly unusual lineage.
Pentagram represents the grimier, slower and more sinister side of early doom. Raven brings speed, muscle and the manic energy that helped define the early NWOBHM movement. Hasselvander has lived inside both worlds.
And those years of musical cross-pollination have shaped the kind of heavy rock he continues making now.
Armor Plating Arrives During the 25th Anniversary of Sub-Basement
The release of Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating also lands during the 25th anniversary year of Pentagram’s Sub-Basement, originally released in 2001.
That record remains an important piece of Hasselvander’s history.
He performed drums, guitar and bass on the album and co-produced it alongside Bobby Liebling, reinforcing the self-contained studio approach that would become one of his defining strengths.
Rather than simply revisiting that period through nostalgia, Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating shows Hasselvander continuing to use the same fundamental philosophy decades later.
Build the riffs, build the rhythm and create the atmosphere. Do not wait around for somebody else to assemble the machine. That stubborn independence suits doom metal rather well.
Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating Follows Fire on the Mountain
Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating follows Hasselvander’s 2025 album Fire on the Mountain, also released through Savant Guarde Records.
The two records can be viewed as companion pieces in the latest phase of his career.
For an artist with this much history behind him, releasing two substantial projects in such close succession suggests something more interesting than a ceremonial return.
There is momentum here. Hasselvander stepped away from touring and drumming after a health scare in 2017, interrupting a career that had rarely remained quiet for long.
He eventually returned to studio work with The Hounds of Hasselvander before moving back into the more solitary recording style heard on Fire on the Mountain and now Armor Plating.
That makes Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating part of a larger rebuilding process. Not simply returning to music, returning to the way he prefers to make it.
From Blue Cheer to The Hounds of Hasselvander
Hasselvander’s career has never remained neatly inside one box.
Beyond Pentagram and Raven, his musical path has crossed with psychedelic and heavy rock pioneers Blue Cheer as well as his own Hounds of Hasselvander project.
The Hounds also gave Hasselvander opportunities to work with musicians including T.C. Tolliver of the Plasmatics and Jimmy Kunes of Savoy Brown.
Those connections help explain why Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating does not exist inside a single rigid metal category.
Hasselvander comes from a generation where heavy metal, hard rock, doom, psychedelic rock and proto-metal were still bleeding into one another rather than being separated into dozens of microscopic genre labels. That broader musical DNA has followed him throughout his career.
Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating Keeps the Riff at the Center
For all the history attached to the name, Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating ultimately lives or dies on something much simpler. The riff.
Heavy music can accumulate decades of mythology, lineage and genre taxonomy, but eventually somebody still has to plug in and make the thing move.
Hasselvander has spent most of his career doing exactly that.
His best work has always understood that heaviness does not require endless complication.
Sometimes it requires weight or repetition. Sometimes a riff ugly enough to drag itself across the floor. That old-school philosophy remains at the center of Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating.
A Veteran Still Building
There is always something slightly suspicious about the phrase “veteran artist.”
It can become polite shorthand for someone whose most interesting work happened decades ago.
Joe Hasselvander has certainly earned the veteran part.
But Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating suggests he is not particularly interested in existing as a museum exhibit.
Two albums in less than a year is not archival behavior.
Neither is returning to the one-man studio method that has shaped some of his most recognizable work.
But Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating is ultimately about what Hasselvander is doing now.
And right now, the Godfather of Doom is still building walls of riffs one instrument at a time.
Joe Hasselvander Armor Plating is out now through Savant Guarde Records.
Listen / Buy / Order the album:
JoeHasselvander.lnk.to/armorplating
Tracklist
1.Armor Plating
2.Loosh
3.The Narcissist
4.Left It All Behind
5.Mary Magdalene
6.Rabbit Jumped the Moon
7.Bed of Roses
8.Boot Hill
About The Author
Caine Blackthorn writes music news, trending topics, commentary, and feature pieces for Metal Lair with a focus on the shifting culture surrounding rock and heavy metal. From rising ticket prices and touring collapse to legacy artists, industry absurdity, and the changing soul of live music, his work blends sharp observation with the grit, humor, and frustration of the scene itself. Whether covering modern chaos or metal history, Caine approaches heavy music as something lived through, not simply reported on.
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