Interviews About Albums: Harakiri For The Sky - Scorched Earth (2025)


In this new interview, we sat down with the Austrian Post-Black Metal band Harakiri For The Sky to ask questions about their album, "Scorched Earth".

1. Scorched Earth comes after a longer break compared to your previous releases. How did taking four years influence the album’s sound and themes?

J.J.: Since we recorded “Maere”, which we finished in February 2020, right before the Pandemic, which was also the reason it was released more than a year later, my life changed completely. My Ex ended our relationship and kicked me out of our flat. That was in late autumn, in the midst of I don’t know Lockdown. The band was also on hold because you couldn’t play gigs during this terrible time and I had nowhere to go. So the only option I had, was to move into a cabin in the woods, not far from where I grew up, that’s the property of my family for generations. I lived there for a few months, made music, wrote lyrics and a book, and tried to drink myself to death. There were times I didn’t speak to a single person for nearly a week. When spring arose and the snow began to melt again, I finally had enough and tried to turn my life around. Retrospectively, this and the time after was one of the most creative times of my life. Most of the lyrics for “Scorched Earth” have their roots in these months and years. I unknowingly already wrote a “Break-Up Album” with the lyrics from “Maere”, so the new album is mostly about the afterlife and the katharsis I went through.

2. The title Scorched Earth is described as a snapshot of our broken world. Could you share specific events or moments that heavily influenced this theme?

J.J.: “Scorched Earth” stands as well for a personal feeling, as mentioned in the first question, but also for the things that happened in my life and in the world since early 2020. I’m pretty pessimistic when I take a look at how the world is turning. Ukraine is still at war with Russia, the Middle East is on fire, and Antisemitism is rising all over the world. The world is terribly broken, and I don’t know what to say, but the last two years changed me as a person and shaken me to the core. Every day you wake up, look at your phone and there’s the next disturbing news. And that’s how the day starts, and also how it ends. And yeah, if you want me to say so, “Scorched Earth” as a title is a metaphor for all that and for the feeling and the burden I carry around in my head. The album itself is not political, but what happens in the world forms our mood and so our art.

3. You mention experimenting with untypical sounds while staying true to your style. Can you give us an example of these new sonic elements?

J.J.: The fundamental element of our music has always been the melancholic atmosphere together with bittersweet melodies. In “Scorched Earth” one thing that evolved is the aspect of structure, as our songs are much more complex, but also quite extensive, and more experimental than ever before. But generally, these things mostly happen naturally in this band. We are starting with a song and things take their turn. We never think too much, about how a song or an album should sound or what other people will think about it. Art or the expression of our selves must evolve naturally, and grow directly from one's heart. Otherwise, it’s not authentic and worth nothing.

4. Your lyrics continue to explore love, life, and death. How has your perspective on these themes evolved since Maere?

J.J: I already said a lot about these issues in the first two answers, but to get it straight, I think these three components are the ones forming us as humans and individuals the most. It’s a journey that starts with our birth and ends with our death. A journey and a way cluttered with heights and depts, shards, despair, and estrangement. And we keep on exploring it till we die, a journey, that’s ironically the prime part of life.

5. What challenges did you face while maintaining the balance between growth and remaining faithful to your post-black metal roots?

J.J.: I wouldn’t call it challenges, cause all we do comes naturally. We don’t meet up and say: Hey let’s do some strange experiments. No, we just write the music and the lyrics that we feel deep in our hearts. Matthias and, I are not thinking too much in genres, but as you say, we are deeply rooted in Post Black Metal, and I think you can also hear that on our new album. New elements are great and keep our music fresh, but Post Black Metal will always have the biggest part in HFTS.

6. With "Scorched Earth" representing a culmination of all your past albums, do you see it as a transitional piece or a definitive statement for Harakiri For The Sky?

J.J.: Yeah, that’s how I’d say it. We took the strongest parts of our musical history and mashed them up. What came to life was this album. This is also why you can see all the animals of our previous albums now on one cover because it’s all of them collected in one release.

7. Could you elaborate on the creative dynamic between M.S. and J.J. during the writing process for this album?

J.J.: Sure. We have been doing this for a pretty long time now. Working together as a two-piece or a whole band is not always too easy. But with the years you get to know where the other's priorities are, what’s important to them, and how they’d like their songs to sound at the end. I don’t have to ask Matthias these days, where in the song, which parts I should lay my vocals, I just know it. That works out 95% these days, we don’t have to discuss these things anymore or at least not very often.

8. The album cover is striking and symbolic, featuring animals fleeing a burning city. How did this idea come together, and what deeper message does it convey?

J.J.: The cover should for sure fit its title “Scorched Earth”. The animals fleeing the fire and the burning forest, in this case, is a metaphor on the one hand, and on the other hand, we wanted to have all the animals of the previous album on the cover, cause we see “Scorched Earth” as something like a collection of all eras of this band.

9. The use of purple is new for your artwork. Was there a particular reason behind choosing this color, and how does it reflect the album’s tone?

J.J.: There is not really a deeper meaning. We just really like this color and we never used it before, so this was an easy decision. But for sure it also matched with the elements of night and fire.

10. You’re about to embark on an extensive tour following the album's release. How do you plan to bring the emotionally intense themes of Scorched Earth to life on stage?

J.J.: We’ll see. We are still doing some rehearsals before we leave for the US to find out, which songs from the new album will also work out on stage. For sure we’ll play the single outputs, but we want to be prepared for more so we can also switch them from concert to concert if we like. It’s getting more and more difficult to play a proper setlist from album to album, cause we have so many, mostly lengthy songs after six records. There are so many old songs we’d like to play, and so many new. ones But a concert also shouldn’t last longer than 80 minutes or something, in my opinion. So we have the difficult decision of sorting them out really carefully.

11. Are there any tracks on this album that you’re especially excited to perform live for the first time?

J.J.: Yeah, “Keep Me Longing” is my favorite right now.

12. With five Amadeus Music Award nominations and global tours, what drives you to keep pushing creative boundaries after more than a decade in the scene?

J.J.: I still want to explore new places and grow personally. I live in a steady fear, that if I change something in life as I live it I’ll quickly get old and boring. Traveling and making music was always the biggest part of my life, and I don’t think I’ll change that all too soon. And for sure there are still a lot of places I want to go. So the journey continues.

13. The album is described as a conclusion of your story so far. How do you envision the next chapter for Harakiri For The Sky?

J.J.: Ha, good question. I can’t say anything about that, this will be a surprise for me as well. What I can say, is that I’m already collecting notes and sentences that will eventually be part of the next album's lyrics. So this is definitely not the end.

Thanks for the interview mate. Have a good one. Yours J.J.

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