Live Review : Harakiri For The Sky + Ellende + Fen @ Rebellion, Manchester on November 16th 2023

It is quite rare for me to be faced with a review assignment that offers the Holy Grail, namely a band that I have yet to witness in a live environment. Harikari For The Sky have existed in some form or other since 2011 however they only really pricked our collective consciousness with their astonishing 2021 effort, “Mӕre”. The superlatives were tossed around like confetti, but since we were still deep in the non-touring days of the pandemic, they had little or no opportunity to get out on the road to cash in on the extraordinary level of newfound interest.

Fast forward two years and on the back of re-recordings of their first two albums, they are finally hitting the highways and byways of this fair country. Up until now the only appearance on these fair shores was a London festival last year, so as you can summarise there is a fair amount of anticipation buzzing around the venue. Rebellion, whilst not packed, is healthily full of both the converted and those curious to see what all the fuss is about. 

For a good while Fen have been mainstays of the British post-black movement. They have built a formidable reputation for being custodians of a more intelligent and insightful version of black metal. Tonight, they are as wonderfully evocative as ever. They bring warmth and fragility to a musical form that is in the main emotionally detached. 

Their most recent album "Monuments to Absence” is an all-immersive treaty on loss and grief. It is some of their most affecting and triggering music yet and the slices they debut tonight feel emotive and haunting. This is Black Metal shawn of its savagery and infantile satanic obsessions. Instead, they use its crushing nihilism to explore our futile relationships with our dying planet and ourselves. It is astonishing how deeply moving a cacophony of sound can be.

Harikari For The Sky have gifted Ellende with the same amount of stage time as they command, turning this into a rather co-headliner affair. On paper, and on record, Ellende are a distinctly one-man affair with Ex-Aphotic Excess vocalist L.G. (not what I presume his Gran calls him) playing every instrument that you hear on their four long players and numerous E.P’s. In a live setting, he is much less of a Billy no-mates and has gathered around him an impressive cast of highly skilled musicians.  

Collectively they produce lush and melodic Black Metal that swirls with passion. Musically there is so much going on and so much depth to the heavenly noise they are producing. Rather than being confrontational and disruptive, this version of black metal feels contemplative and deeply personal. There is an innate beauty at play and there are numerous points where the music being created feels vulnerable and distinctly fragile. It flows in an astonishing and cohesive manner with harsh riffs flawlessly dispersing to give way to exquisitely pristine passages.

It is L.G,’s band and he is very much the star of the show. He flings himself around the stage like some black metal Morrisey, acting out his obviously deeply personal lyrics. He has an astonishing amount of stage presence, drawing the audience into his macabre world. Even though he is drabbed in corpse paint and adorned with the bones of several domestic animals, there is something deeply genuine and organic about his performance. It doesn't feel like a cynical act, it feels like he is driven by whatever personal demons to act in this manner. 

‘Der Letzte Marsch’ from their first EP, “Rückzug in Die Innerlichkeit”, is astonishing. In the middle of the sound of the curdling guitars is an incessant piano loop that circles around in an infinite holding pattern. It is in juxtaposition to the rest of the music but simply by being there gives the track a distinctly different texture.

They close their highly impressive set with ‘Zwischen Sommer Und Herbst’,  another emotionally wrought journey through whatever personal pain abides Mr. L.G.. For a style of music that can be simplistically carnal, there is a complex cerebral nature to Ellende’s approach that elevates it far beyond the norm. Wonderful, just wonderful.

The expectation that bubbles away before Harikari For The Sky take the stage is the very fact that we do not know what to expect. The brainchild of Matthias Sollak and Michael Wahntraum, live appearances are a scant affair, and we are still very much waiting for a proper follow-up to the astonishing “Mӕre”. They explode onto the stage, akin to a frizzling fireball of kinetic energy. What is immediately obvious is how different they sound in a live setting. 

This is fundamentally black metal but delivered in an entirely alien context. The guitars have an almost indie feel to them, as reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine as they are of Gorgoroth. Their sound is off-kilter and infinitesimally and deliberately out of tune. It is that churning, consciously deconstructed guitar sound that is so poignant throughout their set. Grasped from the pages of 80’s shoegaze it feels simultaneously misleading but also vibrantly essential.

Harakiri For The Sky songs do not seem to be constructed in the usual manner. There is no evidence of any cohesion to what is being produced by the three guitar-wielding musicians on stage. Matthias seems to be doing one thing, whilst Thomas Dornig’s and Marrok’s contributions could exist within two completely different tracks. The skill at play here is melding those different elements together to create something that is extraordinarily intricate and immersive. By being at a distinct right angle to what we would expect the songs to sound like, they managed to be irresistibly intriguing.

The other element at play is Michael V Wahmtraum. He cuts a detached demeanour. When not screaming into the faces of those upfront, he hugs the plywood exteriors of the stage like he is trying to distance himself as much as possible going on around him. His passive-aggressive stance is highly reminiscent of Mike Patton, in the way that he both accepts and rejects the adulation foisted onto him. At the heart of his performance is a brooding tortured intensity. He is content to use metal conventions to put across his messages but it is blindingly obvious that he is incredibly aware of not falling into its clichéd touchstones.

For a band trading in such musical complexities, their stage presentation is singularly minimal. They are lit purely by four constantly changing strip lights sitting on the floor behind them. This means that the musicians persistently and relentlessly move in and out of the gloom. It gives the impression of a rejection of the spotlight and a systematic embrace of anonymity. Overall they come across as a metal band that don't quite want to be a metal. 

For all their contradictions and rejections of convention, they are utterly astonishing this evening. Everything feels different. They have taken a well-worn template and completely introverted it, making us view the whole escapade with fresh new eyes. There are no new tracks aired and we get no communication to give us any inkling whether new music is in the offing. But what they prove is that they are not afraid to experiment, not afraid to deliberately contradict convention, and not afraid to drag metal in deliciously enthralling different directions. The hype is real, a fresh and purposely agnostic take on metal. Just fantastic.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Harkiri For The Sky, Ellende, Fen