CD Review: WAR FROM A HARLOTS MOUTH – Transmetropolitan

Has anyone noticed the large amount of so-called “experimental” or “art” style bands in the world of metalcore that draw heavily from their peers? I’ve got a friend who loves bands like THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, and MESHUGGAH, as well as some underground bands like GAZA, and he liked them because they’re weird. In his eyes though, they’re less weird when more bands sound like them. I can’t say it’s very “experimental” when a band is attempting to sound like someone else.

It seems that WAR FROM A HARLOTS MOUTH would like to capture some trends while at the same time have the appearance of an “art” band. They attempt to grab from so many different types of metalcore, although WAR FROM A HARLOTS MOUTH has wisely chosen not to touch melodic metalcore. Surely we can admit that there are actually quite a few original bands in the world of metalcore, and unfortunately so many new bands now treat it like a buffet. Who will get ripped off next? Perhaps the whole portion of directly ripping off only one band. Or maybe the plate will be full of small portions of different metalcore bands.

Here’s a laundry list of what you can expect on “Transmetropolitan”:
– Jagged dissonant metalcore like NORMA JEAN
– Spazzy, mathy core, jazzy interludes and a dub song, like THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN
– Pig squeals and smith blasts like JOB FOR A COWBOY (”Doom” EP era)
– Hardcore vocals, gang shouts and hardcore chords between death metal portions, like DESPISED ICON (notice I didn’t make any hardcore comparisons though?)
– Slow pounding heavy metalgaze, like CULT OF LUNA or ISIS
– Some biting, harsh chords like CONVERGE
– Grinding metalcore, like THE RED CHORD
– And of course my favorite, single note breakdowns

WAR FROM A HARLOTS MOUTH has difficulty trying to express all those bands, uh, I mean influences all at once, so what you get is more of a grab bag of metalcore that isn’t melodic. Ripping off several bands at once that aren’t totally obvious might get WAR FROM A HARLOTS MOUTH a hint more “artistic credibility”, but not much. To be fair, I think there might be some potential hiding in there, because the concept of THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN isn’t totally lost on these lads, they did after all try and incorporate some non-heavy music elements which THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN is famous for, but they didn’t go all out to rip that portion off directly.

I haven’t read too much about deathcore lately, unlike last year. I could certainly tell that the scene was coming to an apex with a band who was going to be left at the top of the heap, with that band being JOB FOR A COWBOY. JOB FOR A COWBOY however isn’t a representation of a new beginning, but an end to deathcore and some of it’s grindy brethren. Getting closer to the tail end of just about anything metalcore is beginning to become as exciting as it is scary. I think WAR FROM A HARLOTS MOUTH shows us that there’s still a few drops of money left for record labels to squeez out of metalcore on “Transmetropolitan”, which achieves exactly that, squeezing the last few drops of blood left in metalcore.

5/10

War From A Harlots Mouth at MySpace
War From A Harlots Mouth at Lifeforce Records