BLEED BELIEVE - CD LP
Track extracts:
MAGAZINE / INTERNET REVIEWS
SCREAMING TARTS MAGAZINE – JULY 2004 - AN INTERVIEW WITH...
PAUL FROM HARPIES.SO WHO IS IN HARPIES AND WHAT DOES EACH MEMBER DO?
Nicky & Laura, both on vocals, John on Guitar, Paul on Bass, and Ad on drums...more>>
Harpies - Bleed Believe
A Badge of Friendship
This is dark, thought provoking, metal all the way. Screams and dagger wielding riffs cut through you whilst intermittedly being interrupted by beautiful vocals and soothing melodies. They are definitely Slipknot, Amen and Sikth's smarter counterparts. This may not be your kind of thing, nor is it mine, but I can appreciate the way the music changes pace, breaks down, becomes more than just the sharp, shrill screams. *Replace* actually starts off, slow, calm with mellow Tool-like riffs playing hauntingly over a meaty bass line. If you are a fan of the aforementioned bands then this is definitely your thing, otherwise, if you like Franz Ferdinand/The Killers or any of that sort of floppy haired rubbish then do your best to avoid this if possible. ***http://www.a-badge-of-friendship.co.uk/rev_albums.htm
Harpies - Bleed, Believe
UK Fusion.com
In the still predominantly male world of heavy metal music, female (fronted) bands seem to arrive periodically to a wave of hype only to be forgotten about as soon as they’re no longer posing for magazines. Remember Kittie, Defenestration, Sugarcoma and Otep all receiving their 15 minutes of fame?Harpies are different. Fronted by Nicky Honey and Laura Westwood (one of whom does the little actual singing, the other mostly screams) but there’s not a picture of either – or any of the band – on the album. Its minimalist appearance reinforces the fact the band aren’t about image, but music.
Unlike some fashionable girl bands, Harpies have the musical muscle – or perhaps, balls – to punch their weight. Forget feminine stereotypes; this is every bit as heavy as the likes of Ragin Speedhorn or Amen (who took the band’s former drummer in 2003) In fact, the four tracks present from the band’s two previous singles reveal that they’ve grown even heavier over the last year and a half.
Nevertheless, I think it’s the softer touches to tracks like ‘Lie Down’ and ‘Station’ that make them highlights of the album. When the band show restraint, less is really more – and songs like ‘Fawn’ are all the more impressive for it. You know the band can be really heavy, but the threat is as good.
When the band really let go, they sometimes lose what makes them stand out – producing fairly generic thrashy noise like ‘So Low’. Still for the most part, it’s more impressive. This album proves girls can rock as hard as the boys, without relying on image, and if they revert to the more melodic side of their song-writing gain then album two should be a real stormer.(4/5)
Ben Saunders - www.uk-fusion.com
Harpies - Bleed Believe
Rock-City.Co.UK
Ever looked at the female fronted bands in metal like Kittie and My Ruin/Tura Satana and thought well… this proves women can do metal and sound as good as the guys, but musically leaves a lot to be desired. Even with Kittie, did you ever think like me when I saw them in Meringue! that they were a record label hand-picked band ‘hey lets get some foxy young nu-metal girls together and watch it sell shit loads!’… but then be surprised by the ferocity of their music and having to admit to be impressed? Well at the least I was surprised, but still … musically it really didn’t have much to it for it to keep my interest.Up steps Harpies, and blows everything else away. Dark sultry music, that any second could suddenly rip your head off with its ferocity – but what puts it well above bands like Kittie and My Ruin is the quality of the tracks. The riffs aren’t groundbreaking, but they’re heavy and do the job, and up there with most of the current hardcore metal bands breaking out of the US. The twin vocal attack of Nicola Honey and Laura Westwood are spot on throughout giving Angela Gossow a run for her money, and I imagine must be quite a sight live to behold. There’s hardly a weak track on the album and the intensity and dark brooding atmosphere rarely dips, and there’s a whopping 13 tracks!
This is a truly excellent debut, no debate about it. There are very few bands I can find to give time in this genre and Harpies are ones that I will from now, it’s quite a find. I thoroughly recommend you track this down, at least before Kerrap! latches on. So for that, I’ll give it full marks. Fuck it, UK music scene needs bands like this making an effort and releasing well produced and written debuts like this. Good one girls.
Al Whitehttp://www.rock-city.co.uk/content/EpAEZllyulAHncnoOk.shtml
Harpies -Bleed, Believe
Rockscene.co.uk
Birmingham, it would appear, is a very dark place. It’s so dark, in fact, that Casey Chaos – frontman with limping American punks Amen – rode into the Midlands’ capitol with his band of not-so merry men and snatched Harpies’ drummer while they weren’t looking. Nasty. So it’s little wonder this band sound so utterly pissed off on this their debut album release. Honing their craft as regular’s at Birmingham’s now defunct Foundry, has seen Harpies – fronted by the duel vocal assault of Laura Westwood and Nicola Honey – win a
mighty following up and down the country. Indie label Fortune & Glory quickly cottoned on to the band’s manic mix of Slipknot meets Eye Hate God to release debut single ‘Lie Down’. It was an exciting proposition then, but, as standout track ‘Just Like You’ proves, this is something altogether different. Allowing your eardrums to be pummelled like a rottweiler locked in a tool shed for over an hour puts to bed any hopes of ‘Bleed, Believe’
bothering the charts, but that’s not the point. This is quite possibly the most essential modern metal release since Slipknot’s self-titled debut. Moreover, this is the sound of a bridged gap between heaven and earth – the best metal record in years.
Alex Hardie
Harpies -Bleed, Believe
Kerrang
The dual vocal talents of Nicola Honey and Laura Westwood alternating between between angelic refrains and guttural roars, Harpies twisted metallic thrusts have been making their presence felt on the underground scene for some time. Here their bloodthirsty assaults come laced with a more ambitious love as unusual guitar sounds and FX. Over the course of an entire album the onslaught falls, but you suspect it’s only a matter of time before they start to draw blood…….
Catherine Yates
Harpies -Bleed, Believe
Blowback
Let’s face it, a bloke on a stage tearing his heart out will mesmerize a crowd, but a woman doing it is better? Am I right?? Can I hear hell yeah? Well, the Harpies obviously indulge in their witchy ways and it’s incredible. Skirting on Cocteau gothic verses and production, in to the gut-wrenching riff crunching choruses that have real bollocks. Peels a big fan and usually drops them between the rock show with Mary Anne Hobbs …can I hear an Amen?
Dan Davies
Harpies -Bleed, Believe
Metal Hammer
Never have pop and rock seemed more like two alien planets; there’s no better way to insult a rock band these days than to say that they sound quite poppy. It was not always thus, of course, and back in the day there was no doubt that bands like Slade, The Sweet or even Status Quo rocked despite being permanent fixtures on Top Of The Pops. It’s just that over the years ‘pop’ was completely colonized by the creepy Cowells and the wanky Watermans that no self respecting muso of whatever genre would want to be associated with it. A pity, since it abandons the great art of the three minute single to relentless shite of to Americans have no such qualms about getting on outlets like TV and Radio.So to say that Harpies are a great pop act is to praise them not to damn them. They are also of course, a great rock band. Singers Laura Westwood and Nicky Honey have voices that wouldn’t be out of place in Sugababes one moment and Deicide the next, alternating. Last year’s ‘Deep’ is a blistering single, the sort of radio friendly hard rock pop that UK metal have thus far failed to deliver. ‘Bleed, Believe’ delivers much of the same, opening with the abrasive sweet/sour-as-fuck ‘Lie Down’ and hopping through highlights ‘Longshot’, ‘Octabpied’ and ‘Just Like You’.
It’s a good first album – no classic, though that might happen further down the line – and proof that they can deliver strong and well executed songs that veer from brutal to innocent. Nu-metal is, were told, dead and buried, yet Harpies sound as thought they’ve arrived late at the party, just as it’s winding down, a fresh crate of boozer under their arm and the intention of staying up all night and having a good time.
Tommy Udo
Harpies -Bleed, Believe
Terrorizer
Lord knows, female fronted metal acts are thin on the ground, yet it’s almost more depressing when those that do exist stick strictly to the limited paradigms of turn-of-the-millennium feeme-metal. It’s this that stops ‘Bleed, Believe’ fro all that it’s a suitably dark and well above-average slice of slightly-dated atmospherically angst-ridden Metal from genuinely exciting or challenging in any way. There’s little here that hasn’t already been done by the likes of Defenestration or Jack Off Jill, and alas, the novelty value of a girl shrieking like a demon really isn’t enough to get excited about these days. Fans of My Ruin, form an orderly queue. Everyone else, proceed with caution.(6)
JM
Harpies -Bleed, Believe
Classic Rock
Back in the late 60’s the West Midlands was the jewel in the crown of the British Tourist Board. The infomercial they produced for the county commented on how ‘thoroughly modern’ the high-rise flats and vast concrete motorways of the region gave birth to Sabbath, Priest and death metal pioneers Napalm Death were. Needless to say motorways are crumbling and the aforementioned high-rise flats have seen better days.The music scene, however, is still very much alive and kicking; Take brum’s very own Harpies for example; this female-fronted band sound like the unholy spawn of Sabbath and Priest crossed with New Orleans oiks Eyehategod. Their debut album ‘Bleed, Believe’ is an ugly, brutal record crammed to the rafters with slow, chugging riffs played on guitars that are so down tuned they’re practically inaudible, super-heavy bass and guttural roars from not one singers but two!
This record may be a bit of a rude awakening for fans of Skynyrd and Zep, but for those of you who want to push the boundaries of the 21st Century heavy metal, then ‘Bleed, Believe’ is a must. (5 stars)
Daniel Lane
Harpies -Bleed, Believe
Sounds XP
Where am I? Who am I? Have I just been pulverised by stampeding bull elephants? Did a posse of Millwall supporters conduct hobnail-booted tap dancing on my cranium while Leatherface chainsawed through my entrails? Ah yes, it’s all coming back now; I was listening to the debut Harpies album. Flying the flag for British nu-metal, this Midlands quintet have produced the sort of record that words like ‘visceral’ were invented for, in the process making Black Sabbath sound as heavy and threatening as Black Lace.A quiet/loud, ethereal/demonic template is established from the off with the thundering Lie Down heralding a 42 minute not-for-the-faint-hearted aural assault of pummelling drums and riffs that crash about your ears with the metal intensity of the train wreck from Hades. Twin female vocalists Nicky Honey and Laura Westwood’s delivery veers between Bjorkish wistfulness, the primal nuances of The Slit’s Ari Up, and the bowel-looseningly terrifying (I defy you to listen to the end of So Low without soiling yourself). Exlax beware, you have just become redundant. Complimenting this is the exemplary fretwork from John Devlin; check out highlight track Station where guitars shimmer mesmerisingly one second and beat you brutally about the head the next.
As the carnage continues like the musical equivalent of a pile-up on the M6, there’s a shift to a more varied approach; Save is an almost Judas Priest-like rocker, Just Like You is Enya meets Jane’s Addiction, and album closer Fawn has one of those hypnotically dreamy starts, drums beating a tribal tattoo and guitar verging into Police territory, while you wait for those Hell-hound vocals to cost you another clean pair of undies, but, surprise surprise, the song restrains itself nicely and the girls just sing.
As searing as a red hot poker up the jacksy, with the darkly brooding thoughtfulness of Hannibal Lector planning dinner, ‘Bleed, Believe’ is a modern metal milestone. Now… where did I put those new Y fronts?
Graham S
'They make Slipknot sound like newborn baby kittens pissing on perfumed cotton wool. Way more subtle, layered and interesting…think Amen, Sick Of It All, Raging Speedhorn and This Mortal Coil' – Metal Hammer
'If Slipknot heard Harpies they would f**k off back to America with their tails between their legs' – Rock Sound
'Harpies scale new cranium-busting heights with their agresso-guitar ambush' – KERRANG!
'(The Harpies) turn in a brilliantly adrenalised exhibition, and, given time, we cam see them growing into some bizarre hybrid of Slipknot and tATu…' - PlayLouder
'Harpies… are the band Sugarcoma briefly threatened to be…the full-on twisted metallic aggression of a raw-as-hell Slipknot, they have just that hint of vital X factor.' – Organ
'Harpies take polar opposites and run them full pelt at each other just to watch the carnage. I confidently proclaim Nicky Honey as possessing the dirtiest and sweetest voice on the planet' – Logo
'Extreme to fuck…the kind of aural assault that makes Mudvayne sound slightly limp-wristed.' – Metal Hammer
'Savage stuff: thrillingly visceral, yet melodic and as heavy as concrete overshoes' – Logo
Harpies – Bleed Believe
Rock Sound
Having long been causing shockwaves across the continually fertile West Midlands metal scene, Harpies appear to have grown into the fearsome band they always threatened to be. Their debut album wastes no time in getting out of the blocks - opening tracks ‘Lie Down’ and ‘Longshot’ both tear up the speakers like Kittie having the King (or should that be Queen?) of all the hissy-fits and it’s a ferocious sound that results. Although the slower numbers like ‘Fawn’ end up feeling laborious in comparison and the set as a whole suffers a little from some hit-or-miss production, there’s still no doubt that Bleed, Believe is the promising shape of things to come – get this cool little quintet into a studio with someone like Ross Robinson and then we’ll really hear some fireworks.
Hardeep Phull
