War From A Harlots Mouth / Burning Skies

Split EP

Written by: PP on 17/08/2010 22:46:42

War From A Harlots Mouth (Germany) and Burning Skies (UK) share Paul as their mutual drummer. Both bands are also signed to Lifeforce records, and they each specialize in deathcore. Apparently they also share a bad sense of humour, at least according to the promo blurb, and these commonalities combined are the reason why we're standing here today with a split EP between the two bands. Each band gets space for three brand new tracks, one cover track of each other, plus there's a (stupid) collaboration in the end, but we'll get to that soon.

War From A Harlots Mouth play a 40/60 split between grindcore and deathcore, absorbing the play-as-fast-as-you-can culture from the former and the breakdown oriented songwriting from the latter. This is also just what the band displays on these tracks, but as we've heard on the group's previous efforts, their songwriting ability leaves a little more to be wished for. "The Shape Of Nothing To Come" is a good example of meaningless breakdowns used as filler in between the decent parts of the song, probably because the band simply didn't know how else to bridge two sections together. Luckily, "Omega" is a fairly decent track that leaves me with an OK impression of the band before they hand over the duties for England's own Burning Skies.

The Brits feature more of a straight up approach to savage deathcore, carrying their death metal influences proudly on their sleeve. The songs are more organic, a little more chaotic, and the screamer is miles better than the dude from WFAHM. Particularly their breakneck speed track "Precision Crippling" brings in more of the same solid deathcore we previously heard on "Greed.Filth.Abuse.Corruption" two years ago. The other two tracks of offer don't quite live up to the album, but they are decent cuts anyway.

But in reality, the differences I've mentioned are merely cosmetic. Essentially Burning Skies and WFAHM don't sound that much difference, which is best seen in their respective cover tracks of each other. I for one found it difficult to distinguish between a Burning Skies original and their cover of WFAHM, and vice versa. That said, the Burning Skies version of "Fighting Dwarves With Keytards" is the best song on this EP simply because it's one of the better songs WFAHM has written during their career. Finally, the EP ends in "Trife Life", a collaboration between the two bands where they engage in beatboxing/hip hop with, frankly, idiotic juvenile lyrics for about a minute and a half. I'm sure this is the bad humour part mentioned in the promo sheet, but honestly, it should've been left off because it's not funny for anyone else than the people in the two bands.

Overall, the split shows two very similar deathcore bands playing by the books deathcore that doesn't place anywhere near the top rankings in the genre league. But that shouldn't surprise anyone, considering we're still waiting for the breakthrough from either band in any scene. Neither band is particularly bad, just typical and unsurprising as far as deathcore bands go.

6

Download: Omega, Precision Crippling
For the fans of: Carnifex, Salt The Wound, Despised Icon, Animosity, Cholera
Listen: WFAHM / Burning Skies

Release date 05.07.2010
Lifeforce Records

War From A Harlots Mouth:

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