Harker – ‘No Discordance’

Endearing, earnest songwriting can be hard to come by in mainstream rock music. For all the bells and whistles the heavyweights utilise in their production, there’s a hollowness to their material that can only be filled by genuinely emotive songcraft. Some of the best material can come from one person with a guitar screaming at the top of their lungs and pouring their heart out.

In Harker’s case, that person is singer/guitarist Mark Boniface. After starting out as a solo outing, Harker expanded their lineup over the years to include Tony Ware on guitar, Phoebe Saunders on bass/vocals, and Matt Claxton on drums, transforming the outfit from acoustic troubadour to punk juggernauts in waiting.

Opener ‘Station Approach’ kicks things off with one of the best choruses The Menzingers never wrote. Bursting at the seams with bristly punk-rock energy, it’s a wonderful introduction to Harker, and perfectly lays out what to expect for the rest of the record. Both the vocal and guitar production is wrapped in a warm, fuzzy distortion, and while this may be down to either budgetary constraints or a conscious decision, it adds a lo-fi DIY punk charm to each of the songs.

Lead single, ‘Plague Your Heart’ echoes The Gaslight Anthem at their ‘The 59’ Sound’ best while ‘300 Cigarettes’ ticks all the anthemic boxes with its opening lines of “It’ll take three hundred cigarettes to get you off my chest, and three hundred more to burn out your scent”. Lyrically, Boniface seems to always find the beauty in the self-destructive, and it’s a theme that runs throughout ‘No Discordance’.

The dueling synchronisation of the guitar work and the vocal melodies on ‘Caught Up’ is nothing short of magical. While on first listen it may have elements of the ‘ballad’ track, the artistry with which Harker conduct themselves elevate this beauty of a song beyond anything their contemporaries have attempted. A wondrous lyrical diatribe on lost love and regret leads into the stunning crescendo that’s a flurry of screeching guitars and gang vocals.

Over the course of this brilliant 10 track album, Harker have achieved something special. To emulate your influences while expanding on those ideas, and adding your own British personality to classic American punk-rock is a challenge, yet it is a challenge that Harker rise to with aplomb.

SAM CRADDOCK-CAMP