Before he put together We Are Harlot, Danny Worsnop used to sing in Asking Alexandria. For anyone over the age of 14, that band were standard bearers for the inexplicably popular ‘metalcore’ movement – a kind of training-bra scene for anyone too old for One Direction but too young for everything else.
Thankfully, at the ripe old age of 25, Worsnop has had a road to Damascus moment. We Are Harlot tap into the music of his parents: Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, Poison. Even more suprisingly, it’s utterly convincing.
Dancing On Nails and the barrelling Easier To Leave wouldn’t have sounded out of place on MTV in 1989, while I Tried is an honest-to-god power ballad, complete with gloriously unironic wailing guitar solo.
A few unwanted shadows of his past remain – the guttural roars on The One – but we’ll let that slide. It’s no Pyromania or Hysteria. But it might be their High And Dry./o:p
