NØ MAN "Between the Sword and the Neck" LP

NØ MAN is a Washington, D.C. political hardcore punk band formed in 2017. Featuring Maha Shami on vocals, Matthew Michel on guitar, Pat Broderick on drums, and Kevin Lamiell on bass, the band features members of Majority Rule.

Between the Sword and the Neck is NØ MAN’s fourth LP and their second album with Iodine Recordings. Across a blistering 26-minute runtime, the band merges pummeling hardcore, political urgency, grief, love, rage, and Palestinian poetry into their most vulnerable and unrelenting work to date.

The album is rooted in the Arabic word “sumud,” meaning steadfastness or perseverance, and channels vocalist Maha Shami’s lived experience as a daughter of Palestinian refugees. The title Between the Sword and the Neck is taken from Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, referencing the impossibility of genuine negotiation between an oppressor and the oppressed.

Throughout the record, Shami’s lyricism draws from Palestinian history, poetry, family, grief, resistance, survival, and refusal of erasure. The album features guest vocals from Kat Hidalgo and Jenna Pup on “In Spite,” quotations from Ghassan Kanafani, Fadwa Tuqan, and Mahmoud Darwish on “In Tongues,” and names of lives lost to the occupation read by friends and family on “They Have Names.”

Recorded and self-produced by the band, mixed by Matthew Michel, and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege, Between the Sword and the Neck stands as NØ MAN’s most intimate and politically charged statement to date.

TRACK LISTING:
01. In Spite
02. Zoo
03. Moan
04. Pregnant Hearts
05. They Have Names
06. Murmur
07. Run Faster
08. In Tongues
09. نزيف على الورق
10. Blood and Paper