Boss HM-2W Waza Craft Heavy Metal Distortion Pedal

Reviving (or Revving) the Seminal Swedish Chainsaw

Sweden is a land of beauty, replete with lush green forests, awe-inspiring bodies of water…and unrelenting, in-your-face death metal! For ’90s Swedish death metal royalty like Entombed, Dismember, and At the Gates, the core of their sound came from a grossly underappreciated pedal: the BOSS HM-2. BOSS has taken this sleeper stompbox and given it the full Waza Craft treatment, resulting in the HM-2W Waza Craft Heavy Metal distortion pedal. Taking cues from its older sibling, the HM-2W boasts onboard controls for Level, Low/High Color Mix, and Distortion. Don’t let its simple layout fool you — this searing pedal pumps out walls of axe-grinding, gut-punching chainsaw sounds while cleanly cutting through mixes. The HM-2W works equally as well in clean and dirty channels, with a handy toggle for switching between modes for even greater versatility. Need to add a bit of girth and roundness to your barre chords and chugs? Switch on to Custom mode for an instant injection of additional gain and more pronounced lows and mids. Many discerning metallers were amazed by the HM-2W’s icepick-like attack while tremolo picking, and when it came time to test those classic death metal riffs, diming all the controls delivered instant Slaughter of the Soul–esque aggression. For death metal die-hards and anyone looking to conjure metal’s Swedish origins, the BOSS HM-2W Waza Craft Heavy Metal distortion pedal is an instant classic.