Harm's Way: 'Isolation'

If you are into Harm’s Way, then you know exactly what to expect from their music. Isolation is no different; and contains 8 tracks of pure crushing hardcore. There is a slight change of style compared to the previous releases ‘Imprisoned,’ ‘No God’s No Masters’ and ‘Reality Approaches.’ They have dropped the early demo sounding powerviolence and developed a much heavier, chugging sound. For some of you this means a positive thing as this record has the potential to change your views on this band but for those who were more into their earlier powerviolence sound it varies from their previous efforts. I think Harm’s Way have come very far and have made a lot of progression in their song writing. Despite changing to a more conventional style of hardcore that suits the modern audiences, this is a captivating record that combines some heavy hardcore elements to pull off a great sounding record.

The vocals on this record play a massive part in creating this overpowering music. ‘Judge Hammers’ as he is known, pulls out all the stops with some slow raw growling mixing it up with some faster paced vocals. Although the vocal style to ‘Isolation’ is not the most original sound I just can’t be negative about it. You can sense the huge amount of anger and hatred which gives the record a classic negative feel to it. Although I don’t really agree to some of their lyrics and attitude I found this record very catchy.

Songs such as Scrambled, Isolation and New Beginning’s contain some varied chugging guitar riffs which I can already see people moshing around to and the song structures would not be complete without the pummelling drum patterns and the final track Pretender shows some blast-beats in a frenzy of power. Everything about this album including song structures, timing, instruments patterns and vocals sound tight which shows this band can work well together. There is a variety of musical elements and Harm’s Way have managed to incorporate both a slow paced darker, heavy hardcore style with brisk and rapid instrumental parts which works well together.

I think ‘Isolation’ is going to be a big release for Harm’s Way and to be honest they are a very hard working band which have progressed greatly over the last few years. Buy it here and help support this band. Also the artwork is pretty sweet too!