Album Review: We Are Harlot – We Are Harlot
3 min read
Hard rock group We Are Harlot are new on the block, but its members are all too familiar; on vocals we have Danny Worsnop (Asking Alexandria), Jeff George on guitar (he used to play for heavy metal singer Sebastian Bach) , Bruno Agra (Revolution Renaissance) on drums and Brian Weaver (Silvertide) on bass. The group’s project has been a work in progress over the last four years, and after making their stage debut at the annual Rock on the Range festival last year, We Are Harlot are ready to unleash their self-titled debut album.
A gritty guitar introduction and electrifying drums open the killer lead single Dancing On Nails, Worsnop sounds right at home with this new direction, with a voice as diverse as his it wouldn’t be a difficult transition from metal core to hard rock; you can’t help but think of the word ‘awesome’ when listening to Dirty Little Thing, this track is a guarana injected rock explosion that showed no signs of holding back or slowing down. Someday is a touch more mellow with its optimism, whilst still retaining the fullness of the group’s sound, Denial sees Warsnop roar like the good old AA days in the bridge and gets you pumped for more; Easier To Leave again gives you that room filling sound experience the album has given you.
The atmosphere intensifies once again with the earthy One More Night, its guitar break downs between choruses and verses ooze badass, Never Turn Back is cleverly delivered with a call and response verse about a girl and the usual roar of a chorus; The One is an addictive number, just the overall attitude surrounding the vocal makes you listen to it again and again, its introduction is just as captivating as the entire track. Just because the word ‘love’ is used in the name of a track, doesn’t mean it has to be a sentimental number, Love For The Night continues the fast paced aura of the album; the bass leads us into the gripping Flying To Close To The Sun, another commendably loud effort. The record takes an unexpected turn with its last track, I Tried drops the anticipated grittiness and adopts a more warmer sound, you feel just as empowered as Warsnop as he sings about self realisation in a broken relationship.
We Are Harlot’s debut is a strong release, that’s for sure, you just didn’t know what to expect and what was heard was satisfying; when you bring four of music’s most talented musicians together you would hope to be in for a treat with no room for disappointment, each member contributed the best they could. As mentioned earlier, Warsnop seems right at home with this latest sound and it will be interesting to hear what his future solo project will be like, Asking Alexandria fans will either be proud or skeptical of the road he is headed down. There were a lot of highs and not so many lows, We Are Harlot was an exciting listen from beginning to end and should become an instantaneous hard rock favourite for 2015.
