Review Summary: I am harmed. I want my time back.
The first song starts with an agonizingly slow build up, with the same simple guitar pattern repeated for over two minutes. Suddenly, boringly, they add a little bass to the same guitar pattern. After they do that for a bit, they somehow produce an even simpler guitar pattern. The only redeeming factor of this trash opening to the album is the solid drum work, and some occasional hard vocals. Fascinatingly, the song finally explodes around the seven minute mark. Like I wasn’t bored before then. The song drags all the way to eleven minutes and eleven seconds in total, whilst a loud droning occurs that can only be called loosely melodic noise. It was a bold move to start the album with such an experimental track, and also a terrible move.
The second track entitled Don’t Bitch My *** turns the volume dial past max. It is an effective metal track with crazed hardcore vocals that truly penetrate, and catchiness becomes a thing with actually enjoyable riffs. The next track continues the catchy with a hard vocals motif, but has less heavy guitars, more like sludge rock. The track also brings back the droning guitar noise, and they drag the song out again. In almost half the track the song drones with no buildup, variations in sound/patterns, and the song ends with no climax. It is how the song ends, droning away into infinity, and I began to question the band’s song writing.
The fourth track was a waste of my precious time. For almost four minutes, a recording of a preacher preaching occurs while the drummer drums in a polite manner, and some droning occurs quietly. Of course, some simple guitar and harsh vocals are added, but this time they are surprisingly quiet and boring. At this point in the album I was ready to put in a petition to burn this band with fire, yet the album continued. Another terrible track, and another reason to throw my headphones off the nearest bridge with a note on my headphones that says “*** Palehorse”.
Thankfully, track five - Bird Feed - brought the band back to actual music making capacity. The sludge rock guitars return, and it’s a honestly decent rock track, I kid you not. However, the sixth track afterwards goes back to dumb drone stuff and boring riffs. The track at least builds up a tad, meh, skip it. After skipping the track, it brings you directly to the final track. Already at the final track, and nearly nothing has happened in the album aside from the slow leakage of my sanity. “This better be a life saving track”, I said as I plunged further into the non-musical abyss.
Skin Flick is the final track, and of course it’s a lengthy track, barely apart from nine minutes long. There’s droning/ambience that’s quite moody and it sounds like the band put real thought into the crafting of the song. After so many poor experiments gone awry, it’s wonderful to hear the aculmination of their ideas be so potent in one track. The conclusion of the album almost makes the opening track forgiven - what a great way to end the album. No sarcasm intended, it is a powerful track.
The final track was great, but it was too little to late. Harm Starts Here is a collection of ideas that barely compliment each other. The drone music was a solid concept but little variety in their drone sound pulverized their efforts. Likewise, a few decent rock tracks did not stave off my boredom, and they felt awkwardly placed in the album. If you’re a fan of drone music there may be something here for you, but this isn’t gonna be the greatest time for others. The band’s experiments failed to engage me in this release, indeed, the album is a failure.
