‘Every second, They told me Terrorist, Big, scared, Still alone, They hit me, with what they thought, who did they think I was?’ (Not A Terrorist, Haram)

I first encountered Haram (Forbidden) at Static Shock Weekend V in 2017 and it’s fair to say they made quite the impression.  Their primitively pulsating, rapidly swirling hardcore sent the crowd into gyrating convulsions, while their vocalist, Nader, matched the velocity of this reaction with his own wild contortions.  All while rhythmically snarling in Arabic and clad in a black bandana, white toga skirt, and boots.  A bold visage designed to provoke and to confront.

We, of course, live in the age of the provocateur, but it was clear from the offset that there was real substance, both musically and ideologically, fuelling Haram’s challenge.  The song themes from their 2017 debut full-length, – بس ربحت, خسرت = When You Have Won, You Have Lost, provided a clear insight to the issues that the band were seeking to tackle, not least on American Police and Not A Terrorist.  This was to be further emphasised on their 2019 EP, Where Were You On 9/11?

But it wasn’t until I recently read a thoroughly engaging essay in an anthology of Max Easton’s Barely Human fanzine writing, Dispatches From An Underground Music Anti-History: 2014-2024, that the personal history that shaped Haram came into clearer perspective.  The piece takes us through Nader’s early life story, his parents arriving in New York, as immigrants from Lebanon in New York, and his upbringing that bridged a conservative Muslim home and an equally rigid Catholic education.  Inevitably, the horror of 9/11, and the subsequent responses to it were to dramatically reshape the family’s life.  Indeed, young Nader was questioned at school as to the whereabouts and activities of his parents – his father was attending Ground Zero as a member of the first emergency response team as he was quizzed.

The dynamics of Nader’s family with their wider local community were irretrievably altered, a shift that led to a growing sense of isolation and saw Nader struggling to forge his own identity.  New York’s hardcore community was to provide a lifeline, and in 2015, Haram were formed.  The band released their debut EP, شو بتشوف؟ (What Do You See?), a year later.  The band were touring the Midwest when Nader started to receive calls from furious family members who had found themselves being questioned by the FBI regarding Nader’s activities with Haram.  Members of The Joint Terrorism Task Force visited him on his return and started to question him on the meaning of the band’s lyrics.  It soon became clear that they had not even sought to translate them before investigating.  The case was soon closed, the harm already done.

The recent reissue of Haram’s sole full-length release by La Vida Es Un Mus Discos is a timely one in the context of a world where systematic othering, social division, and radicalisation are being almost relentlessly cultivated by political opportunists, religious extremists, and economic grifters alike.  And the music? Don’t worry you won’t be disappointed.  Densely rhythmic drums and limber bass-lines lock-in with Nader’s barking invocation, giving room for the guitar to explore more abstract expressions amid the pounding onslaught, before unleashing spiralling solos.  Revisiting the album afresh, it is notably more melodic and expansive than I would have recalled, with Eye For An Eye and Your President, Not A President landing with particular velocity.

Haram’s music represents an important phase in hardcore’s social evolution and, as Max succinctly puts it, ‘a struggle for peace and identity, spoken through the sonic language of contemporary hardcore punk’.

– بس ربحت, خسرت = When You Have Won by Haram is in stock now here.

Many thanks to Max Easton (www.barelyhuman.info) for allowing me to draw on his essay.  Definitely check out his latest Barely Human anthology, Dispatches From An Underground Music Anti-History: 2014-2024, which includes the full Haram essay and a wealth of punk related music writing.  It can be found in the UK at the Good Press (www.goodpress.co.uk) workers co-operative bookshop in Glasgow.