A restart with a paper trail
Hammerheart Records dates its beginnings to 1995. In a September 2003 statement, its owners said Hammerheart would “call it a day” and that they would restart under the name Karmageddon Media. The same statement said the artists and catalog would transfer to the new label, with Plastic Head Distribution becoming its exclusive distributor from 1 October. Contemporary coverage therefore records both a break in identity and continuity in the work: a new name, a carried-over catalog and a new distribution arrangement.
That wording is more precise than calling Karmageddon a simple rebrand. A contemporary announcement tells us what the owners said they were doing at the time; it does not by itself settle every later corporate or rights question. It does make clear that the change involved more than a new logo.
Why change the name?
In a 2020 interview, Guido Heijnens described the 2003 move as a restructuring. He said the label needed to withdraw from some distribution deals and needed a new identity to do so. He also said the Karmageddon name was dropped after those issues had been resolved. This later account adds a practical explanation to the announcement, though it remains one participant’s retrospective account rather than a complete set of company records.
In the same interview, Heijnens described the Karmageddon chapter as ending in 2006 and said the label had become largely inactive in terms of new releases. Hammerheart returned under its old name in 2010. The timeline is thus not a neat succession of identical labels: it is a sequence of operating names, changing distribution arrangements and periods of activity.
What the catalog can show
The records associated with Karmageddon range from Scandinavian death metal and Irish doom to English folk metal and releases by Dutch bands. That variety is evidence of a broad roster, not proof of one shared “Karmageddon sound”. Some entries are new albums; others are reissues, compilations or regional editions, and those categories need to stay visible.
This archive follows the name through dated announcements, reviews and catalog records. It is independent and is not the label’s official archive. The sources support a history of credits and releases; they do not establish who currently owns every recording, design or trademark.
