HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY
SCORCHED EARTH
Scorched Earth is the 6th studio release from this Austrian post-black metal band formed in Salzburg and Vienna in 2011 by vocalist JJ (Michael "V. Wahntraum" Kogler) and multi-instrumentalist Matthias Sollak, formerly of black metal band Bifröst.
OVERALL THOUGHTS: There is a striking beauty about longing, misery, and self-reflection here that sonically engages you like no other manner of metal. could. The blackness of this genre's convention teeters on this very melodic, sometimes deliberate, sometimes striking strength of speed and power chords just ripping right through your soul. Engaging in that with the most incredibly mythotical, gut-wrenching pleas for understanding and grieving. Sowing that building tempo and credence to being a balanced harbinger for Heavy Metal perfection is a magic trick performed with incredible shock and awe, but coupled with immense feelings of loss and pain.
There are a lot of bands and a lot of albums and songs that try this with a few variations but what these two gentlemen show you is that there can be cohesion to this idea, and that cohesion doesn't have to be sad music + self depricating whispering, deep inhales or heavy music + anger. There is a blend here that works with a mire of patience, perfection, and introspection.
Also appreciate the level of collaboration that they embrace here in virtually every song. Amazingly, two guys are doing all this but it is equally amazing the endless talent they can incorporate and never feel like they lose even a note.
1. Heal Me (feat. Austere) - The opening to this song is an epic sonic boom that sets the stage for what this band delivers time and time again: doses of unconventional, huge surprises. You would almost lean into this intro just to hear a kick drum or a blasting guitar riff but instead it becomes this ethereal gut-wrenching plea..."I wasn’t myself for months and nobody noticed...I wasn’t myself for years and nobody cared...But when the past isn’t dead, is it even the past?...When the past is still alive, how can it ever be forgotten?!" That pirouettes into a massive chorus that rips through the fabric of earshots with a monster guttural punch, layered with giantic guitar growls, an angelic symphonized guitar hymn, and monster punches on the bass drums. The song just continues to pummel your perception and stays relentless for 7 minutes.
2. Keep Me Longing - How about a little piano and orchestral build for your Black Metal bingo card? This gorgeous intro inlays into a more conventional guitar riff and kick drum barrage that continues the same vocal stylings of it previous track. Another 7-minute onslaught of longing and loss that shifts into a monster bridge at around the 8:30 mark and just puns you into the ground. The release aspect of what Harakiri is giving in these first 2 offerings is so brilliant in design because it really doesn't moch the genre but it also doesn't fall into its traps.
3. Without You Its A Sad Song - Here's when you get a more melodic riffing that allows for a nice tempo'd, more traditional Black Metal along the lines of The Amity Affliction. The guitar riff that becomes more like the song's chorus is such an awesome melody. The guitars here are spectacular, especially it just has such an even and smooth flow, even though the tempo changes are there. The piano also plays a nice background layer to help it keep that nice smoothness. This is probably my favorite song on the album.
4. No Graves but the Sea - The care this intro has as it falls away into the rhythm of guitars and beautiful drumming. There is another nice riff, and the chorus has kind of a hardcore feel to it. I can only imagine what the pit would be like for this song. I love how the other instruments drop out and the guitar just keeps strumming, almost like an echo in the darkness. For 8 minutes, this song really moves, it doesn't have the doom that the first 2 tracks have until about 6:30 minutes in, and yet at about the 7:30 mark it goes back to this nice hardcore tempo. Very awesome.
5. With Autumn I'll Surrender - The soft yet very even flow pacing that sets up the menacining metal assault here is very genre forward,d and I know a few out there who are more traditionalist in the black and death metal scene aren't fans but this is such a great polish to their range. It shows so much of what these guys are doing is about feeling the music and feeling the essence of what works for the enormous anthem it is setting forth lyrically here. This is the "F U" if you don't understand us song and so it almost seems poetic to utilize a more modern, conventional Black/Death Metal, Metalcore palette. Another strong effort that has permeated my rotation.
6. I Was Just Another Promise You Couldn't Keep - Back to what is quickly becoming their signature, with the vocals seemingly behind the musical accompaniment. Here though, they utilize both that idea of the first two songs and incorporate a little more melodic pacing, where they use a nice guitar chord change to angelically master a bridge to a strong chorus. A bridge that doesn't just go away, instead it paces and folds into the melody, and again, all of a sudden we have this awesome almost hardcore/metalcore pacing.
7. Too Late for Goodbyes (feat. Svalbard) - Here is my favorite collaboration on this album with Svalbard, this awesome hardcore British band (if you have never heard of this band, check out "One Day This Will All End"). I love the blending of both bands' styles here, in what is more of a mash-up per se, but ultimately it paces like a Harakiri song. However, adding the extra layered guitars and the nice hardcore vocal whispering in the background really completes this song like no other on this album. Again, these guys with their tipping the genre scales over and their irreverence for convention, keep reinventing within the same album so boldly and fresh. Really strong here.
8. Street Spirit (Fade Out) (with Groza) - Ironically, in what is the cleanest vocals and with the help of the phonic temple-like chanting that is so Groza, there is a beautiful charging into oblivion here that just seems the perfect way to end this full album listening experience. I know this is a Radiohead tune, and that makes it even more just right for this group. Alone, this is the most commercial of the songs here, for more than the obvious reasons(um-hmm Radiohead) but it also is the most non-representative of this band's threshold and power. Instead, it is just a nice goodbye, which, if you were listening to the album as a whole, is perfect, but alone it's weird to think this is what most people think they are in store for with Harakiri. Which is not even close.
I have been absorbing this album for the better part of the last couple of months, and I can honestly say there is so many songs from it that just frequently pop into my rotation, and I am thankful for that. The last song aside, this is a really strong effort with a massive amount of great different genre blends that will bring an y metal fan in on at leas tone song here, if not 2 here,m bu I imploy you what makes this band unique is the lyrical stylings of the its herdest an dkost cherished truths of how we are al broken but not willing to give up because of it. The strength of the grieving and motivation, accompanied by the amazing musicianship, has a unique signature that I hope gets explored more in the future.
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