Review Summary: Manchester post-punkers Uhr dance first and think later, to great success.
For the uncultured among us (myself included) who don’t know who or what a “Salathiel Harms” is, it’s apparently the name of a character from the 70s crime drama series Kojak. What does that have to do with anything? No clue. But after listening to Uhr’s fantasitc debut mini-album/EP/whatever, you probably won’t care about inconsequential things like that. Once again, in what seems like a monthly tradition at this point, a newer act I found on Bandcamp has utterly captivated me with little more than noisy guitars, brash drums, and a pinch of plucky punk energy. I’ve said on multiple occasions that when it comes to music, I’m actually relatively easy to please. Give me some fast-paced post-punk and I’m set. That’s really all there is to it.
The closest comparison I can come up with sound-wise for Uhr’s sound is if you took every great 2000s post-punk revival/dance-punk release, boiled them down to their barest components, and then blended it with some art punk (for taste). The result might be less tart than you might be used to, but the trade-off is that it goes down surprisingly smooth. Impressively smooth, actually. One of the record’s best attributes is how accessible it is. Every track is bursting at the seems with memorable guitar lines and hooks. And while the lyrics are all but (intentional) surrealist nonsense to my ears, they’re damn fun to chant along to. I don’t know very much about the band’s members, but they work together well on this record. You can tell they’ve been polishing this set for a few years before finally deciding to put it to tape and the album’s all the better for it. You might hear an album like this, what with the noisy feedback and sporadic vocals, and assume that these guys are amateurs. But frankly, this is as tightly produced as any pop record I’ve ever heard. Tracks like “Eskimo,” “Ugly Children,” and “Reason To” are testaments to this; tracks that (in a better world) would be alternative-radio-ready chart-toppers. Honestly, if some of the tracks weren’t so short, I’d give them all betting odds as fluke indie hits.
Speaking of, if there was a downside to Salathiel Harms, it’d be it’s incredibly short runtime (at just over 16 minutes). You’ve heard it time and time again, and you’re probably tired of hearing it, but that’s a good problem for a new band to have. Especially on their debut. Making super-stylized dance-punk like this is always a gamble, as it’s popularity seems to come and go as quick as the wind. But I think that gamble paid off for Uhr in spades on this record. A single play and you’re guaranteed to be hopping out of your seat and asking strangers to dance.
