Artist: Harifa
Title: When The Leaves Fall, I’ll Be Near
Type: Album
Label: Matriarch Records / Digital
I admit I was caught on the hop by this, coming so soon after I had found their debut EP ‘Withering Woods’, and wondered about reviewing it. Not because of any lack of quality, far from it, but just because it was so close on the heels. But for a variety of reasons one review I decided against on a little inspection of stuff I wasn’t keen on and so as I had already discovered I really, really liked this too so when the gap opened up… here we are.
Is this an album? Well we’ll take the Reign In Blood measure so, sure, why not.
Opener ‘ Autumn Leaves’ combining almost wistful backing vocals and the harsh black metal lead, the raw guitar and sound definitely has that post-black metal feel. The quiet parts layering that feel a little higher. The sharp, sheet metal guitar sound, from which melody flows, is superbly put together too. A very nice opening. ‘Petrichor’ offers us piano and fine use of the clean, wailing vocals in the background bringing a haunting feel that is never lost, not even as the raw black metal sound engulfs us. There is a real maturity to this songwriting and arrangement here; nothing is lost, nothing softens either the emotion or the atmosphere. This is feelings raked raw. ‘Memorabilia’ too manages the balance between the raw and the haunting so well.
There is a balance to be had here as we progress through the album; Harifa is an amalgam of raw black metal, DSBM, post-black metal and perhaps a touch of blackgaze too. But then when you you hear the absolute ripping opening of ‘Daimones’ all the subgenre thoughts go out of the window. It is wild dark spirits and black metal and who cares what else.
‘Sabbatic Goat’ is almost primitive; a dark and raw chugging and clawing beast with one hoof somewhere in the early nineties sound, dragging the muck with it into the 21st Century. I really like this track, something refreshing about the need to summon up the musical darkness and perfectly placed on the album too. ‘The Book Of Lies’ follows on from this beautifully; dark, malevolent and absolutely raw and angry black metal. It’s as though somewhere the album has slowly slid deeper into the darkness, no longer haunted we are no damned.
We close with ‘Into The Fog’. No quiet walk into obscurity, this is a compelling and strident insistence that we follow.
This was a surprise as I said, but also I think this is just a little more revealing of what the artist has at their disposal and how it might develop. Fine; raw black metal is always more at home in my soul than the more post-black metal style but Harifa blends them together so well, bridging the syles with DSBM so that it defies even my lazy sub-genre judgement. This album flows from the haunting sounds and eerie world, deeper and deeper into the raw and feral souls hiding behind the softer enticement and that is a fine achievement. The songwriting is really impressive, the arrangement once more shockingly mature and here I also should mention the production here is excellent – it holds the melody when needed but without remotely sanitising the bitter raw riffs which really keeps this on track so well.
Dam. When I said I hope there’s lots more to come I wasn’t quite expecting it this fast. But I’m certainly not complaining.
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 