Harakiri For The Sky

Amid blinding lights and sinister darkness, a quiet Thursday evening in the heart of Rome's East side turns into a collective ritual, hitting the Roman audience with a fierce cathartic drift. Officiating the shamanic liturgy are the Viennese band Harakiri For The Sky, now in their fifteenth year of career, celebrated with the release of their latest album "Scorched Earth" on their trusted label Art Of Propaganda.

The evening, organized at Largo Venue on Via Prenestina, is opened by local band SVNTH, hastily called in to replace Klimt 1918, unfortunately absent due to health issues affecting one of the members. The group led by singer and bassist Rodolfo Ciuffo unleashes a sound halfway between black-metal fury and more introspective passages tinged with shoegaze, acting as the perfect bridge into the Austrians' show.

Harakiri For The Sky's set opens with the new single "Heal Me", which is essentially a summa of the sound the band has forged over the years. It works through sudden rhythmic jolts, with a raging, cutting vocal delivery reminiscent of hardcore, but above all through luminous openings built on piano lines, as if painting a micro-universe of conflicting feelings in the listener's soul.

The following "Fire, Walk With Me" kicks off at full throttle with a riff recalling the harsh mountains of Northern Europe, building a cathedral of instrumental phrasing and tempo changes into a true blackgaze gem.

The songs are stretched out in the live format, enveloping the audience in a lyricism that unfolds within the folds between the build-ups and the most delicate breaks, as in "With Autumn I'll Surrender", which leaves behind a haze of desperation and despondency. Then tracks like "You Are The Scars" bring all the inner pain to the surface, like a psychoanalysis session set to guitars as sharp and abrasive as blades.

But this depressive form of music is designed to suddenly dazzle with bolts of light, as on the main riff of "Without You I'm Just A Sad Song", which brings certain Radiohead-esque textures to the center of the darkest scene.

The icy black-metal fuses with metalcore at the close of the set, in the searing "Sing For The Damage We've Done", before an encore practically demanded by the crowd.

Harakiri For The Sky return to the Roman stage with the piano-led opening of "Keep Me Longing", torn open by a dramatic surge. The grand finale comes with the notes of "Lungs Filled With Water", a final blend of black metal and shoegaze, riding a hypnotic, glacial pace. After more than an hour of desperate beauty, the Viennese band bids the audience farewell, while more than one face seems marked by emotions too hard to wash down with a light beer.

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