War From A Harlots Mouth

[Hildegard Lobach]

Warfrom a Harlots Mouth is a German metalcore band from Berlin, formed in 2005. Consisting of vocalist Nico Webers, guitarists Simon Hawemann and Daniel Oberlnder, bassist Filip Hantusch, and drummer Paul Seidel, the band is noted for a distinct musical style consisting of infusing many different genres into their songs, such as math metal, death metal, and jazz.

War from a Harlots Mouth was founded during 2005. The band was formed only as a side-project originally and consisted of three members only, including their vocalist, drummer and one guitarist. The name of the group was inspired by/represents a "lying person"; " the war from the mouth is the lie itself, while the harlot stands for the liar." The band deliberately didn't include an apostrophe within the word "harlots" because they "didn't like the look".[1]

War from a Harlots Mouth recorded and produced their first EP titled Falling Upstairs in cassette format during June 2006 with only 50 physical copies of it released through the independent Berlin-based cassette tape label Yehonala Tapes.[2] The lineup of the EP consisted of Simon Hawemann on guitar and bass, Paule Seidel on drums and Steffen Winopal on vocals.[3] Later on that same year, they released a CD/10" Split with deathcore act Molotov Solution on Twelve Gauge Records.[4] After finding a second guitarist and a bassist in the end of 2006, WFAHM joined the War of Attrition Tour in 2007, promoting the album of the same name by Dying Fetus, accompanying bands Skinless and Cattle Decapitation, also joining the stage for Never Say Die! Fest with bands Ion Dissonance, Dead to Fall, and Through the Eyes of the Dead. Also in 2007, the band joined Lifeforce Records and released their album Transmetropolitan in September.[5] The band during these times gained a lot of notoriety in their home city due to their lead vocalist, Steffan Winopal's extremely screechy and "dying" sound he gave off in his screamed vocals, distinguishing the band from many others that played in a similar style. They were also one of the first groups to incorporate jazz influence into their heavy sound around their area.

With Webers as a new vocalist, they went on their first headlining tour promoting Transmetropolitan with fellow labelmates Burning Skies. In 2008, they joined the Grinding into Catacylism Tour, with bands Psyopus, Left to Vanish, and Fuck the Facts, and later on released a 5" Split-CD on Sharkmen Records with the band Dead Flesh Fashion.

On January 28, 2009, the band announced release dates for In Shoals prior to its release, during WFAHM's inclusion in the Thrash and Burn European Tour 2009. In Shoals is where the band started to show a change in musical direction and is also the first album with the band's vocalist Nico Webers. The album showed a departure from their deathcore sound and more into mathcore and metalcore territory reminiscent of bands such as Converge and Gaza. After this album, the band remained in this style for the rest of their career.

The group released their third full-length album, MMX on October 29, 2010.[6] Given a high amount of acclaim the record was made available for streaming online prior to its physical and iTunes release.[7]

On September 17, 2012, the band released a "lyrical video" for the first single- "Scopophobia", from their newest album Voyeur, which was released October 19 in Europe, and November 6 in the U.S.[8]

The band announced that they would be going on a "indefinite hiatus" on August 16, 2013, followed by releasing an announcement of a farewell tour.[9] The tour ended in their home city (Berlin) where their final show was played on December 30, 2013, and was filmed in its entirety.[10]

During November 2016, War from a Harlots Mouth made a post accusing the American band Attila of plagiarism for stealing an idea from one of their songs. In the open letter, WFAHM referred to Attila as "undoubtedly most mentally challenged band on planet earth" and claimed that their song "Obsession" stole the idea of sampling the sounds of a machine gun during a breakdown from their song "If You Want to Blame Us for Something Wrong, Please Abuse This Song", which was released 9 years earlier.[11]

The first thing that has me raising eyebrows at The Rock is that there's a retarded amount of people hanging by the merch area and the back-side bar. The stage side of the venue is still closed for sound check, but I'm not sure if that's the real reason because the nearby wall is dominated by multi-coloured, BIG WRITING, br00tal graphics-printed t-shirts, hoodies and other stuff the bands have brought along. Soon enough the stage area is opened, and a stream of deathcore-cled scenesters is allowed inside, plus me, the odd one out, with only minimal knowledge to the bands playing tonight, having spun A Plea For Purging's latest disc once, same for Arsonists, and War From A Harlots Mouth only a couple of times in the hours leading up to the show, but decided that four hyped bands from the deathcore scene playing together is an opportunity far too sweet to miss.

First up were the Tennessee-based up-and-coming metalcore heroes A Plea For Purging, fronted by their absolutely massive vocalist casually drifting across the stage, delivering some spot on screams and growls throughout the performance. The un-passionate movement from both him and the rest of the band at first signaled a boring performance to come showmanship-wise, but as soon as the band's two mind blowing guitarists took the lead, pummelling some sickeningly good melodic and technical leads at the crowd, all the whilst headbanging and keeping themselves in constant small movement, it was enough to sell the band for me. The song structures alone had my eyes fixated on the stage, changing between the good vocal delivery and the fretwork of the axemen - something mirrored by the thus far thin looking crowd. They may have been standing still for the most part, but at least I noticed everyone's head nodding and feet tapping, which is always a good sign. Of course, there were the generic breakdowns inserted in nearly every song, and if these would be cut from A Plea For Purging's music, the tracks would have a much better melodic flow and they'd no doubt be high up on people's hype-hype-hype list. The karate moshers didn't seem to mind though, and provided many hilarious moments to this writer especially because as the floor was almost empty, they had all the space in the world to look fucking retarded. Honestly, if you think this looks anything other than stupid, you should probably move to Texas. Regardless, A Plea For Purging's set as a whole was a surprisingly decent and professional affair. I'll be checking them out next time they'll be playing here, for sure. 7

So if the two guitarists were the highlight of A Plea For Purging's set, then the focal point of Salt The Wound was undeniably their charmismatic, hyperactive vocalist Mat Wessoly. Constantly engaged in either sprinting across the stage or jumping around, he provided the energy needed to wake up the crowd and not before long, the people were centered right in front of the stage, and it was that interaction that made Wessoly's performance feel that much more powerful and in-your-face. It always gives a better picture of a show when the vocalist is constantly leaning down to the crowd, either screaming in front of their faces or lending the microphone to numerous amount of people who - surprisingly - knew the words to the band's songs. Tonight was to be the last time Denmark would ever witness Salt The Wound, as they broke up recently after releasing just two albums, but they wanted to finish their final European tour before moving to other adventures. This, I'm sure, was another reason why the band were on their toes tonight, ignited into an explosive, entertaining modern deathcore show full of high energy songs that lended themselves for intense crowd activity. No experiments with the setlist, just the band's best songs, so pits were stretching from left to right with people crashing into each other, and on stage you had Wessoly demonstrating just how versatile he is on vocals, switching effortlessly between styles from shriek to growl to screaming all the while rushing around the stage like a maniac. Easily the best band on the bill tonight in terms of performance, shame they've broken up, I'd go see them again. 7

Now the first words I jotted down my notes about Arsonists Get All The Girls were "rave metal". Those funky keyboards these guys have make HORSE The Band's equivalent tracks sound normal. The second item on my notes is "horrible clicking noise from bass guitar" which dominated the sound for the first four songs, rendering the band's sound useless for much of that time. However, the band were full of energy with lots of jumps and storming around the stage with no band member standing still, leaving the sound as a secondary priority to the spectacle we were all witnessing in front of our eyes. Only after FOUR songs was the bass guitar failure finally taken care of, and it was here that the band's atmospheric keyboard-meets-Between The Buried And Me-esque-guitars-sections lived up to what I had briefly heard on record. These dance-inducing passages were the highlight in every song, and it puzzles me why they aren't in a more dominant role as the songs would be so much better, and the keyboardist would have more to do live as well instead of just rocking out whilst not really doing anything. In fact, this band would outright "rule" if they did that. But even though the performance is energetic and good initially, soon it becomes clear that the songs just don't live up to the stage show, and I'm starting to better understand why BL graded their latest record only 5 out of 10. This reflects to the crowd's response as well, because what was initially an enthusiastic, crazy response in the pits, ends up dying towards the end with people content just standing still and watching the stage. And the longer that AGATG play, the more convinced I become that their songs are much, much weaker compared to the two bands before. Like any gimmick-ey band, the novelty wears off all too soon, so a performance that started out as a 7 is reduced to a 6 show, which isn't even saved by the bassist, drummer, and vocalist all changing positions in the last song, with the first mentioned rushing into the crowd with the mic in the hopes of generating at least something equivalent of a response to finish the set on a good note. 6

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