Band of the week 52/2025
Origin: Pescara, Italy
Genre: Depressive / Post Black Metal
Hier geht’s zur deutschen Version.
The band about itself:
Past experiences that the members lived together in music, bring them to give life to ‚Eyelessight‘ project in november 2011.
Editorial commentary:
In 1904, Franz Kafka wrote in a letter to Oskar Pollak:
„[…]But we need books that affect us like a misfortune that causes us great pain, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being cast out into the forest, away from all people, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.
That is what I believe.“
I believe that this also applies to music; and I believe that there are no words that can more accurately describe how seeing Eyelessight live felt to me.
I actually made the decision to dedicate a Band of the Week post to them back in September; on September 6, 2025, to be precise. Atmospheric Arts was taking place for the fourth time, and Eyelessight was performing alongside other excellent bands. I was vaguely familiar with them from hearsay, but I had decided not to delve deeper into their work beforehand because I like to let myself be suddenly and unpreparedly pushed into emotional and psychological abysses, find it useful and beneficial, for the overall experience and gain of insight, to completely disregard contextualization, logic, and analysis in my first impression and instead let myself be completely flooded by the musical experience.
In the case of Eyelessight, it was something between a millennium-flood and a deluge; definitely cathartic, perhaps even valuable in terms of trauma therapy. In any case, it was more than impressive, and if Kafka hadn’t spontaneously wandered through my brain, I would still be sitting here, trying unsuccessfully to find the right words.
If I were wrestling with a literary text, I would ask myself the question “How does this affect me?” in the first round, and then, for the second, third and so on reading, consider what causes the impressions I had the first time. In the case of Eyelessight, some of these factors are, of course, rather personal. At the same time, however, it is not simply a matter of chance and personal sensitivity, but definitely also one of musical skill. Similar to their Italian colleagues Dreariness (until 2018), Eyelessight manage to convey even the deepest anguish not only authentically and precisely incisively, but always with a wounded and vulnerable tenderness and a melancholic sense of finality, as well. This applies to the instrumental part, which repeatedly takes time for more gentle, tender breaks —whether to catch one’s breath or to feel the turmoil even more intensely probably depends on one’s personal disposition. But it also applies, and quite centrally, to the vocals. There are truly excellent female screamers in black metal, even in DSBM. However, Kjiel not only screams excellently, but also knows how to combine this with absolutely authentic-sounding sobs and quieter parts to create an immensely intimate atmosphere. The result is music with a high level of skill, recognition value and emotional expression, that goes deep precisely because it takes time for the light moments as well as the dark.
Eyelessight are and remain one of my concert highlights of the year, on par with Kall’s Lifelover set and Gràb’s penultimate performance at this year’s Prophecy Fest.
The band at Dark-Art:
Live impressions:
Music recommendation:
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Band of the week is our weekly posting about a band we recommend and is posted every Tuesday at 8pm (CET). These are bands that are just at the beginning of their career and that we think should receive more attention.
You can also find all the bands we’ve featured this year in our playlist on Spotify!
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