I brought this back from my parents’ basement: The Boss HM-3, dubbed “Hyper Metal.” It disappointed me in the ‘90s, and it disappointed everyone else, who thought it fell far short of its predecessor, the legendary HM-2, called the Metal Zone. It was what made bands sound like Entombed, Entombed included

There’s a use for everything, though, so I thought why not. It’s not as bad as I remember. It lacks attack definition so, it’s not better for me than the Microcube’s built-in rectifier simulator. It does create a fibrous sound, though. It’s also sort of muddy and band-limited. It was the style at the time. Think about Pantera, with the extreme gating and compression and a lot shaved off, EQ-wise. Intense, but also kinda fake-sounding. Though who’s to say what sounds fake now?

Anyway, here’s the same riffs with the pedal off and on. Apologies for the sloppiness.