HARM – The Nine

Frostbyte

This metal/grunge combo Harm hail from Southern Ontario, Canada. They’ve been around since 2003, but this is only their second outing. Released in their homeland and bits of Europe in 2009, the follow up now gets a full international release.

It’s a strange album in many ways. The opening salvoes are stereotypical doom outings with massively distorted vocals that more than nod to Tom Araya, ponderous riffing and cloying bass lines. ‘Salem’s Parade’ offers nothing new and is a bit like wading through treacle. The thrash/doom feel isn’t helped by tacky beast-of-hell sepia cover art, together with time-worn lyrical content gelling around dread, accusations and conspiracy.

And another thing. This album ‘The Nine’ has ten tracks. Am I missing something?

But as the collection winds on, a little more musical endeavour becomes apparent. ‘Philistine’ hints at light and shade, revealing a sublime chug before losing its way; ‘Chelsea Smile’ varies the pace and has some inventive delivery but peters out before any kind of climax is reached.

The album’s epic track is ‘Hand Me Down Virtue which trots out the classic interplay between acoustic melody and power doom grind. Vocalist Steve Sharpen gets into a Geoff Tate persona for a bit of well placed high-octane drama.

The band seem to be pitching for an interesting market that falls somewhere between Cathedral, Tool and Queensryche. At the moment, the song writing isn’t strong enough to pull this off and that’s what really lets them down.

Interesting though. Hope the next album builds on this.

***

Dave Atkinson

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