War From A Harlots Mouth - Transmetropolitan

77%

The debut of the band that opened on the last Dying Fetus tour; War From A Harlots Mouth. Catchy right? Formed in 2005 in Germany, the band quickly gained attention when their first music hit MySpace. So here is their debut record, out on Lifeforce Records.

When I saw this band on tour, they managed to make an impression on me, and that’s quite something when you consider that I still had to see Cattle Decapitation, Skinless and Dying Fetus. Their mathcore was presented in an enthusiastic and funny way, but the guess is of course if they can transfer those two things onto a disc. Well they’ve managed quite well I might say. It sure sounds enthusiastic and energetic, and a sharp production makes sure I don’t have to really sweat myself to follow the music. The humoristic factors can easily be found in looking at the song titles, like for example ‘Heeey… Let’s Start A Band’ and ‘Fighting Wars With Keyboards’.

The sound of the band consists of a mathcore base (which basically means real tough song structures), with a high dose of hardcore and grindcore, and a hint of jazz. This means heavy strong vocals that go from screams to grunts, covering annoying dissonant fiddles, thick metal riffs and ultra-brutal breakdowns. I especially like the breakdown in the track ‘If You Want To Blame Us For Something Wrong, Please Abuse This Song!’, the guitars and drums double shots that are fired from an AK-47. Very cool idea for samples!

Yet somehow I don’t think this album really got to me. I played it many times, but I fear that the slowly overflowing mathcore scene is producing mediocre bands by now. The song just don’t really stick with me, except for the breakdown beats. Now I am certainly not saying Transmetropolitan is a bad album, not at all. I just think it will be hard for War From A Harlots Mouth to have their voice be heard, between all those other awesome mathcore bands out there these days. Luckily I already know their live performance is great!