7

The seventh album. 2007. A clear statement, no more or less than necessary. HARMFUL stands for nothing other than HARMFUL. For the seventh time in 15 years, punctuated by endless touring. An institution in Germany. A small one maybe, but a solid one nevertheless. Noiserock. Alternative. Metal…ROCK. No pretense, no posing… NO FAT! And yet, with their first album release outside their homeland, a completely new discovery to the eyes and ears of the world outside of Germany. Songwriting sits firmly in the heart and gut of this album: raw, lean, and transparent while simultaneously full of power and fragility-all with the confident delivery of a unit that knows what it is, and sticks to it’s strengths.

“After fragmenting into a million different sub-genres in the 90?s, rock music seems to have gathered up it’s skirt, stopped sleeping around, and returned to the idea that playing in a particular tuning or wearing a certain style isn’t what makes you good – it’s your songs! That’s utter nonsense, of course, but listening to Harmful’s seventh album, it’s nice to imagine that music like this is commonplace: melodic without being twee, heavy without being meat-brained, moving without being emo, catchy without being shit.” – Ali Maloney, The Skinny Magazine (UK)

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