By Jacob Vandergeer Reviews - Live August 16, 2019

Harms Way & Jesus Piece in Toronto, August 2019

Hard Luck Bar, 10 August 2019

After releasing exceptionally good albums last year both Harms Way and Jesus Piece have been making waves and many fans, including myself, who were very excited when they announced they’d be touring together for a few dates. One of the dates on this tour included a show in Toronto and on a Saturday night they played the Hard Luck Bar for a packed and intimate show.

Toronto bands Real World and Fuming Mouth got things started and certainly got the crowd warmed up. Both bands encouraged the crowd to move around and they were happy to oblige them without hesitation.

By the time Jesus Piece took the stage the room was hot and sweaty, but the anticipation was high. Vocalist Aaron Heard came out on stage and he was all smiles. He knew it was going to be a good one and he was right. The bands constant onslaught of breakdowns makes moshing irresistible and every audience member in the venue could feel the impact from it. If you wanted to avoid it, you were almost forced to stand at the back of the venue. Heard was left looking nearly emotionless just starring out into the crowd during some songs, like they were taking him to another place which almost looked surreal seeing him stand above the disarray like that. It was intense and when he wasn’t doing that, he was screaming aggressively with a death grip on the mic. This band is not for the fainthearted.

The momentum continued and Harms Way kept the beatdown on the crowd going. There was stagediving left and right and the pit was very active. The band sounded huge and better than I ever could have imagined. Hearing songs from Posthuman being played live for the first time was hugely satisfying especially when they played songs like “Temptation” which was just made to be experienced in a packed room like this with bodies flying all over the place. Everything about their performance was flawless and vocalist James Pligge aka Hammers McPligue is just a monster on stage. He throws his fists in the air on cue with all the heaviest parts of the songs and just heightens the impact of them that much more. Drummer Chris Mills was incredibly impressive to watch, and the drums had such a forceful punch to them. Harm’s Way are certainly a fun band to see and they’ve worked hard to become such a tight and well-rounded band.