Review by Adam M on April 11, 2018.

Harakiri for the Sky performs a nice post metal groove that has black metal elements to it. The music here has a shoegaze vibe to it, but doesn’t completely venture into that genre, but instead merely sticks to the two aforementioned genres. It is very powerful music that has a strong potency. Though it is very post metal in nature, the screaming of the vocalist and a dark foreboding aspect bring it closer to black metal.

Regardless, this is a very nice release that has a ton of beauty buried beneath its cascading riffs. The songs here drip atmosphere and go on for a long period of time. In fact, this is a fairly long album, but it gets the point across of crafting songs with depth and emotion. The passionate side of the band never lets up and drags across these 8 tracks to the maximum potential. The music of the band is certainly full of power and grace and never lets its guard down throughout. Songs like You Are the Scars provide a very solid atmospheric element that is constantly upheld throughout the length of the album. The problem with the band lies in the fact that if you consider them post-metal, then you’ll end up comparing them to the best of the genre like Cult of Luna. While this band falls a little short of the masterpieces created by that act, they do their best to keep up with them and offer fairly stiff competition. If you more favorably compare them to post black metal, then this album stacks up more positively. They simply have the chops to surpass the likes of Fen for the best in the genre.

However, you label this album, it is a very strong piece of metal that has the right level of emotion to compete with just about anybody. Fans of post metal and atmospheric black metal need to check Arson out post-haste.

Rating: 7.7 out of 10