WAITLESS - CD EP

Track extracts:

>> WAITLESS <<

MAGAZINE / INTERNET REVIEWS

lDROWNED IN SOUND
Just about everyone who gets the privilege of hearing The Harpies (and is still compos mentis enough afterwards to comment on it) has noted how Slipknot would swiftly have to run home and change their slacks if they ever came within earshot of them. If your correspondent didn't have one finger prized onto the 'repeat' button and wasn't busy baying for more aural carnage, I'd be inclined to agree. If we're gonna be all loose-jawed and glassy-eyed about this, their new single 'Waitless' is rather intense (so intense, in fact, that the radio edit makes the original song longer in order to take the edge off of it).

Of course there's all the usual factors here - the pounding bass drum frenzies, sense-obliterating guitar shred-work, all done with more fervour and aggression than most of their contemporaries can muster. That'd be enough to make this a good, dirty, mosh-rousing tune. But it's undoubtedly the pleasantly-named Nicky Honey and her unpleasantly-disconcerting vocal chords that give this song the bite to be savoured and make it stand head, shoulders and however many piercings are in each over most of the current competition.

For one moment she's pondering melodically about, y'know, issues and shit, before unleashing this thing, this sheer white-hot stabbing noise-ball of barking and shrieking that is enough to make your soul quiver, your eyeballs itch and your mind envisage her coughing up her entire digestive system. Yep. It's fucking great.

The B-side 'Stay Down', meanwhile, is pretty much four minutes of ghostly guitar and sombre chanting. It appears to be a good way of calming you down after all that rawking excitement, and not least a way of proving that this lot can be affecting when they get all atmospheric on your arse as well as when they're busy trying to rip a new hole into it. And, yes, they do seem to be a darnsight better than the 'Knot'. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need a lie down...

ALTERNATIVE NATION
This is a strange one.
Harpies are a British four piece that come in like Daisy Chainsaw if they were powered by a love for grindcore. Not usually caring for this sort of noise, I was surprised to find that Waitless is surprisingly memorable, shifting between lullaby lulls and roaring feminine shriek. Waitless is juddering aggressive modern rock at its best and the radio edit, more a remix by Glasgow NIN man Rico, strips away some of the metal to reveal the pop song at the core of the track. Interesting stuff.
Charlie Parker

SOUNDS XP
Sweet fucking Jesus! It starts as a gentle Emo tune before suddenly exploding into some cannibal holocaust, one in which they're feasting on Slipknot's brains. A sociopathic 15 year old skater with parenting issues and a subscription to Kerrang! could identify with it; the rest of us would ground the band and its fans for a week till they'd become less hysterical. However, there's a much better radio version on here that replaces the blasts of metal and Nicky Honey's screams with a straightforward rock urgency that would woo the more sensitive of the Kerrang! crowd. That they're not some heavy metal neds is shown by 'Stay Down', which is surprisingly ethereal, like a long lost 4AD record.
Ged M

INDIGO FLOW
Harpies' debut album Bleed, Believe is not only a great album but a complete lesson in how to kill people with sound, as it's perpetually on the verge of being too much and just reigned in by the band. Since then the band have lost on of their vocalists, Laura Westwood, leaving Nicky Honey as lone frontwoman, something she rises to perfectly.

Fans of the band may (or may not) be disappointed to find that Waitless is not much of a departure from Harpies' earlier material, though a bonus is that they have lost none of their intensity (actually, I think they might just have got faster and louder). What makes the prospect of their second album all the more interesting is b-side Stay Down, a foray into ambient electronica, which they pin down as perfectly as they do with bone-crushing metal.

ROOMTHIRTEEN.COM
If you didn't know better you would think from the opening of Harpies' newest single 'Waitless' that they were just another inconsequential indie act but then 30 seconds in all hell breaks loose and ear bleeding pandemonium takes hold. You have to ask 'who is this band?'

The Birmingham based quartet fronted by the vocally schizophrenic Nicky Honey has put together an incredibly raw, vibrant and unique take on metal. This is certainly a single that makes you sit up and take notice. The melody pieces are more like an Editors style band but when they let loose they make Killswitch Engage and Slipknot look positively tame. My Ruin's Tarrie B and Kittie's Morgan have got some serious competition finally from the British side of the Atlantic.

A radio edit mixed by Glasgow genius Rico also features on the CD; it replaces the intense metal and screams from Honey with a rock style that should appeal to a broader, Kerrang-style crowd. But to be honest the absolutely demented racket of the original version is a hell of a lot more appealing. Very interesting material from a band to keep an eye on, you might as well, with this noise coming out of your speakers you can't very well ignore them!

SUBBA - CULTCHA
"I've been waiting for this sort of demented racket all my life" Taking the airyness of Oceansize and the soul-beating energy of Neurosis whilst Todd are fucking with the perimeters...

SPARK MAGAZINE
Wow! What a pleasant screaming metal surprise this turned out to be. One must always take the hype with a grain of salt, but this is one of those times I am happy to be wrong. The title track of the single is an unyielding delicious assult of speedy Ministry-style drums, with an understated, spooky guitar intro that suddenly goes all merciless distorted aggression, eliciting memories of Tool. This Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation is accompanied by an effemiate voice lulling you into a false state of comfort, thinking this song will never amount to much until suddenly its roaring its lungs out at you and comparisons to OTEP begin to coagulate in the bloodied mind. Track 3 is the radio edit of 'Waitless' and is tragedy, like a lion declawed, all the screaming and distortion removed, taking the life out of the song. 'Stay Down' is an intriguing choice for a b-side because it is utterly different. Sounding more like the 'Goth dream rock' supported by the Projekt label (give yourself a star if you know of the label, you Goth you!), the faintly Black Tae for Blue Girl-esque track firmly establishes the Harpies as worthy of further investigation.
Munir Remahl

Since the release of last year’s killer album, Bleed, Believe, Harpies have been busy! After touring extensively, they shut themselves away in a darkened room, and have finally emerged with a new creation! WAITLESS, the bands latest offering, is not for the sensitive! Three minutes twenty-eight seconds of in yer face metallic hardcore contradicted by melodic sensitivity;

"Harpies scale new cranium-busting heights with their aggresso-guitar ambush….. It's only a matter of time before they start to draw blood…."
KERRANG!

Nicky Honeys vocals flit effortlessly from tuneful melody to that of noise shattering pandemonium, she'll fool you, offering the sweetest utterings that would encourage a baby to slumber, but when the tune rolls, she'll roar like a demon that's been staked in the heart. Its ruff – ruff enough to tear holes in speaker cones;

"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 MAGAZINE

A sheet of heavy guitars rip through the tune, making it rise and fall on a journey that is all too encapsulating, as the song twists and turns supported by an undercurrent of beefy drums and thick necked burbling bass;

"Extreme to F**k…the kind of aural assault that makes Mudvayne sound slightly limp-wrested…."
METALHAMMER

For the more sensitive natured, the radio remix by Glasgow based producer Rico is less offensive, it wont trash your hi-fi speakers, but it’s equally capable of courting further attention;

"If Slipknot heard Harpies they would f**k off back to America with their tails between their legs…."
ROCKSOUND

"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

"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…."
METALHAMMER

BBC Radio One John Peel Link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/alt/johnpeel/thisweek/20040628_peel.shtml#sess2

[back to top]