Rentrer En Soi
Megiddo

Initially, it's a guitar arpeggio, a simple arpeggio that becomes a melody, and then a voice transforms the melody into harmony, and the voice becomes a scream and the harmony an intertwining, and the intertwining a song, and the song an emotion and the scream pain. And the pain is overpowering, piercing, heavy. The pain changes shape and sometimes becomes more bearable, often entirely unmanageable, at times wonderful, but also even fatal. The unbearable heaviness of living in less than half an hour is MEGIDDO, the latest mini-album and last discographic bequest of the RENTRER EN SOI, a Japanese visual kei band that traversed the 2000s with a path of continuous qualitative growth and a constant descent into the darkness of pain. A descent that led them to tracks emblematically titled I HATE MYSELF AND WANT TO DIE or STIGMATA. A descent that led to their disbanding, leaving in 2008 as an artistic testament one of the best rock works ever produced. MEGIDDO is a massive masterpiece based on an enormous effort: do not be misled by the presence of only five tracks in the lineup, as these are an absolute celebration of musical art, and the sublimation of the most intense and profound human feelings with a power and attitude that, for the introspection of the lyrics and the intensity of the music, has not been seen since the days of German Romanticism. It is no coincidence that the name of the band is a Gallicism for "returning into oneself," considering that the theme obsessively explored by the singer and lyricist Satsuki throughout his career is precisely the attempt to investigate the inner self of the human soul, often proposing a nihilistic stance as the sole solution to the ills of life, one of denial of the external world.

The EP is the result of a very complex process that probably cannot be fully grasped by anyone (other than those who participated). The tracks are ordered in a way that makes MEGIDDO a kind of concept album entirely woven around themes close to Western religiosity; not only the plot of the story, but also the song titles refer to Christian concepts, and the album's name itself is a reference to the city where Armageddon, the battle between good and evil that will bring about the end of the world as we know it, will occur. The lyrics trace a journey that begins with the end of a love affair and continues with various delusions, awakenings, and phases of acute despair, increasingly acute until the ultimate choice of suicide imagined as a return, in a sort of uroboric circle, to the mother's womb. Musically, it represents the definitive state-of-the-art of hard rock interpreted by RENTRER EN SOI in an entirely personal manner in which the hardest of sounds is often brought close to the most melodic of phrases, creating a dreamlike disorientation effect similar to ambient rock, but from which it starts and for which one can, if you allow me the expression, speak of a sort of "orphic hard rock." A clear example is BAPTISM, the central track of the album, constructed with mathematical logic: the song is divided into two mirror parts composed of short scream - whispered growl - long scream (and vice versa in the second part) and at its center (and thus the center of the CD) is a moment of extraordinary lyricism that, amidst so many screams, stands out even more with its enormous evocative power; this bipolar alternation between very different elements generates infinite emotion every time the melodic moments, nestled among the screams, are reached, making them even more precious. The mirror and antithetical symmetry extends to the entire album: the previous track is CRUSADE, enormous angry madness, and the next one is DAMNATION, a sad descent into memories dominated by hypnotic rhythms furrowed by Satsuki's trance-like voice. Again, the first track is LAST SCENE, the only possible moment of MEGIDDO where the description of the end of love still holds realistic meaning, and the last track is METEMPSYCHOSIS, a complete abandonment of objective reality to instead devote oneself to memories, dreams, fantasies until deciding to definitively leave the real world with an extreme gesture. METEMPSYCHOSIS is certainly one of the most extraordinary tracks left by RENTRER EN SOI and, probably, also one of the most beautiful ever written: the slow tempo transports the listener into a parallel universe intimate and dominated by the infinite torment of pain and in which the melody is so sweet that it strikes the heart deeply; the verse is divided from the bridge by a truly thrilling guitar opening, the superb refrain is concluded by an extraordinary guitar solo by composer Takumi, the arrangement is highly evocative (excellent the duet work of the two guitarists - one repeats the theme in a rondo, the other marks the melody) and Satsuki's voice reaches moments of total rapture that only make the piece more melancholic and poignant up to the ecstatic, powerful finale. The last word of the last song of RENTRER EN SOI's last album is "itsumademo," which means "forever." A guitar arpeggio concludes the album, just as it began, and finally twelve long seconds of total silence close the group's career.

There is a scene in the movie Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts goes to the theater to hear the opera La traviata: she tells Richard Gere that she doesn't understand a word of Italian, but he reassures her by saying that she'll understand everything because music is a powerful medium that can convey emotions to anyone without any kind of discrimination, least of all linguistic. And indeed, Julia cries at the end of the opera. In the same way, MEGIDDO manages extraordinarily to communicate emotions to anyone who listens to it. It is indeed a stunning legacy left by a band that has traveled its own path distinguishing itself by quality: autobiographical-flavored lyrics, genre transitions up to inventing a new one, universal language, descent into the abysses of despair (as the title of one of their singles states). RENTRER EN SOI, in their exploration of emotionality, might look like just another emo group, but be careful not to misinterpret: between them and 30 Seconds to Mars lies the same distance there is between a real aspiring suicide and the trendy guys with bangs that populate Italy's squares. It's about internalization of pain, not externalization of discomfort: it's an essential difference, but not always easily identifiable; RENTRER EN SOI, with the power of their music, have managed to draw a clear line of distinction between what is transient and false and what is lasting and real. Their art is real.