By now, you would think that the melodic hardcore genre would have overstayed its welcome and all of the positive and negative lyrics that go along with the music have lost their magical effect. Lo and behold, here comes another new band in the genre that resuscitates my love for the music. Do No Harm released their debut self-titled EP over the summer for free on Bandcamp. Do No Harm manages to encompass all of my favourite traits of a melodic hardcore band and blend them into one amazing entity. The self titled features some strong melodic guitar leads that ring through my head with every note. The drumming that can be heard here is nothing too technical but then again, what melodic hardcore band really utilizes technical drumming and makes it sound decent? The drumming however, has been mixed well and the tone is very good. What really catches my ear with Do No Harm is the captivating vocals and the poetic lyrics. The first track, “Parchment”, is a great opening track and begins with a slow soothing intro that leads into the emotional vocals. The beginning of this song really makes me think of the song “Unlovable” by Worthwhile. When the vocalist screams “I wish I didn’t feel this way, filled with self loathing and shame”, I can feel the pain in the vocals and know where the vocalist is coming from. The ferocity of the music is really felt in this track. Each song on this EP is fantastic but the one that really brings the rock is “Fury”. Immediately, this song starts off with a fast paced, intense intro and lyrics that I can relate to. Every word on this song is a perfect example of the lyrical quality that this band can produce. The leads in this song really speak with the same voice as the vocals and gives the music much more passion. Even though the vocals on this self titled are as great as they are, they don’t change much throughout the five tracks and start to sound the same. However, this is not much of a flaw because the vocal style still fits the music well even without variation. Everything this EP brings is solid and will leave me putting this EP on repeat for more than a couple of spins.
Links: Facebook – Bandcamp
