Show me a place to call home
Something to feel, something pure
And shed some light inside… inside…
Give me a dream, give me more
From Costa Rica’s shadowed heart comes Ariel Maniki and the Black Halos, a band steeped in gothic grandeur, new wave nuance, post-punk pulse, and darkwave devotion. Since their formation in 2014, they’ve sharpened a signature style built on romantic ruin and lyrical longing, weaving spellbinding moods that ripple through Latin America’s underground and across Europe’s ears. Now, returning after restless silence and stalled inspiration, they break their hiatus with Pieces, a fresh release marking their tenth anniversary.
To break their creative deadlock, the band decamped to a secluded cabin high above San Jose, where isolation and thin mountain air sharpened their songwriting instincts. The resulting track, ‘Pieces,’ arrives alongside a video steeped in survivalist symbolism, marking Ariel Maniki and the Black Halos’ determined return after a prolonged silence. Echoes of The Mission, The Chameleons, Clan of Xymox, and Caifanes hover unobtrusively in the background, familiar yet never intrusive.
“We put together a little recording station and locked ourselves for a weekend to focus on writing some new material together as a band,” they say. “Before grabbing any instruments we sat down and discussed what our new song should sound like….The discussion went on for a while. Alcohol and other assets might have helped a bit, but once we agreed on the ingredients, the music just manifested itself effortlessly. We connected on a very deep level, and in no time, we had something solid that we all liked.”
Pieces pours forth a pleading heart, raw with longing, crumbling beneath the weight of its own broken breath. It’s a desperate call cast into empty air, aching to escape its own tormented thoughts, seeking solace through another’s eyes. Home becomes a holy, unreachable horizon; comfort lies somewhere beyond this chaos. Within the ruins of the speaker’s scattered soul, burning blossoms drift to dust and dreams dissolve.
Maniki’s voice rises rich and resonant from this ruin, wrapped in lush guitars that bloom and bleed in waves, bass lines breathing deep and dark beneath, synths sighing soft, swelling gently like midnight tides. The band builds beauty from despair, each note another fragment from a fractured heart, each harmony another hope half-hidden beneath ruin. This is music shaped from sorrow yet sweetened by sincerity: a prayer whispered urgently, before the final fall into silence.
Shot in stark black and white, José Castrillo’s video catches the band mid-motion: tuning, teasing, laughing, lurching toward something loud. It’s part rehearsal, part documentation of the creative process. We watch the band piece songs together in a wood-paneled room, pose for photos with crooked grins, then – suddenly – a burst of colour, sweat, and stage-light as they roar to life before a crowd.
Watch the video for “Pieces” below:
Ariel Maniki and the Black Halos command stages with aching energy, turning live shows into electric communion. They’ve lit festival flames and club corners alike, rubbing shoulders and sharing shadows with celebrated acts across continents. Deeply loved in Costa Rica’s underground, their songs speak openly of solitude and soul-searching, passion and pain, the tangled ties between humans who yearn and hearts that hurt.
Their latest release leads boldly with Pieces, yet lurking behind it lies its sister track, The Veil. Where one rushes, the other trudges: a slow, sinister bass line, a voice pleading from the deep. Both songs emerged from the same mountain cabin experiment, twins born under different moons; each sibling a separate soul, exploring opposite edges of a heart haunted by longing.
Listen to Pieces and The Veil below and order the record here.
Pieces by Ariel Maniki and the Black Halos
Follow Ariel Maniki and the Black Halos:
The post Shed Some Light Inside — Ariel Maniki & The Black Halos Debut Video for Shimmering Goth Single “Pieces” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
