There’s an incredibly wholesome feeling when a band decides to push themselves into interesting new territory. Or in the case Berlin quintet War From A Harlot’s Mouth, tap into an aspect of their sound and pull forth a rich vein of songwriting. Although their previous efforts ‘Transmetropolitan’ and ‘In Shoals’ were rightly lauded as prog-tech-metal standouts – and the band continue to be a great live act – there is always the accusation that their mish-mash of sounds could at points lack focus. This is thrown sharply into relief by ‘MMX’.
From the opening blast of ‘Insomnia’ it’s clear things having got a lot more serious. There’s a blast of black metal-alike blizzard noise and clanking riffs belie a sense that they’re a far angrier beast than the light-hearted anarchism prevalent on previous releases. There’s no room in ‘MMX’ for jazzy frivolity: this is nihilistic to the core. Tight-palm-muted guitar riffs and bass stabs that toil like funeral bells are the order of the day here, every riff pared down to the bare minimum.
Like the landmark ‘Catch 33’, this is a record that’s best served up whole: there’s an overlapping motif between the opening track and follow-on ‘To Age And Obsolete’ that punches all the right buttons. And it’s this recurring passage (it also makes an appearance on ‘Cancer Man’, and elsewhere) that proves to be the musical lynchpin of this record; in the same way Meshuggah’s virtuosity comes not from blazing fast solos, but from their diamond-sinew grip on time changes, WFHM have taken their sound, and pared it down to their bare essentials.
There’s still a rich vein of inventiveness: ‘Spineless’ is ‘classic’-WFHM, with the finger-tapping aplenty and the hardcore aesthetic we’ve come to know and love, as well as a cheeky calmer passage that will have the likes of Between The Buried And Me nodding their heads in approval. But, there’s still a nod to their new, more focused direction, with a sludge-esque breakdown that reminds one of Yakuza.
For a band who sometimes put noodling at the expense of focused songwriting, ‘MMX’ marks a dramatic shifting of the paradigm. No more do the fingers fly, which you could argue reduces the charm somewhat. But results are hard to argue with. This is a beast of a record, of tightly focused aggression coupled with a band at the peak of their abilities.
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