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Buy here: Despite Harm’s Way’s reputation for unrelenting ferocity, “Common Suffering“ surprises at several turns with quieter moments of intricate songwriting that emphasizes light and shade. It’s their understanding of how to effectively orchestrate these dynamics that makes their latest feel infinitely more merciless. This is Harm’s Way at their best – the ambitious sound of a band traversing new ideas and succeeding with their strongest and most fully-realized effort to date. For their improbable new single “Undertow,” the band united with Kristina Esfandiari (King Woman) whose haunting vocals add a whole new dimension. It comes with an arresting video directed by Finn O’Connell and features both Harm’s Way and Esfandiari. “‘Undertow’ looks at the cycle of life and death, and one’s process of coming to a space of acceptance with the latter. While we can argue that self-preservation is inherently human, finding peace in death and dying brings us that much closer to humility and our shared humanity.” - Harm's Way This time around, Harm’s Way shifted to recording at Studio 4 in Pennsylvania with producer Will Yip (Turnstile, Code Orange). Going into the recording, the goal was to improve some of the band's processes, examine vocal cadences and experiment during production to gain the best idea from each track. The first change dealt with refocusing members on their specific wheelhouses. While vocalist James Pligge had previously assisted with riffs, on this effort, his main objective was to ensure the perfect vocal attack– leaning into Yip for advice and letting the remainder of the band take the wheel with their respective parts. The result is each player pushing to the far reaches and creating material that has previously never been colonized by any band, or hardcore writ large, before.
