Harm/Shelter – Paycheck

German Quintet Harm/Shelter formed in 2011, this is their debut full length album and it follows on from their 2014 EP, The Evil Within, but this album is a slightly sleeker beast compared to that EP and their sound has been honed to a razor sharp edge. Harm/Shelter have steadily been developing their heavy breed of hardcore over the last five years, essentially it sounds like a multiple pile up between early hardcore crossover bands, Bodycount and the punkier side of Thrash Metal.

Harm/Shelter deliver a pummelling aggressive brand of metal that has been spliced with the attitude of hardcore and the beats from rap, mid way through there is even a piece of actual hip hop. Vom Schatten Ins Nicht, is a mellow slice of German hip hop with light guitar and eighties keyboards, this unexpected path then leads back into more familiar heavy territory via Interlude . This is brutal and heavy music that is delivered with a heavy groove feel to the drumbeat, an influence that can only have come the more extreme end of rap music, but this in no way rapcore or anything similar, The rap influence is only in the way the tracks are delivered, it jut seems to make the battery of aggressive guitars and barked vocals somehow flow smoothly.

If you like things at the heavier end of the punk spectrum, then this is an album you might want to investigate as it is as heavy as anything I’ve heard this year, yet it manages to deliver it’s blows with a smoothness, in that respect Paycheck is the equivalent of being punched with a velvet boxing glove. If this was a traditional thrash or hardcore album I’d probably get a bit weary of it, but the amalgamation of influences keeps this album from being a relentless headache. I liked this a lot more than I expected to, it’s a subtle twist on the classic cocktail of hardcore and metal that works surprisingly well. 

 You can pick up your Paycheck from Breakdown Hardware Records here