The Harp Twins. The dark bowels of The Underworld is usually the home to a wide selection of black-clad individuals, wielding electric guitars and laying waste to eardrums as rabid audiences throw themselves around with wild abandon. The fact that those in the North London venue were witnessing two identical and demurely dressed young women in red dresses wielding harps was something of an about-face for the usual inhabitants.Â
The Harp Twins – Tezaura
The Underworld, Camden – 17 February 2024
Words: Paul Monkhouse
Photography:Â Razorrhead Productions
Nevertheless, The Harp Twins Camille and Kennerly rocked the place with equal vigour and no little class. On the last night of a whistlestop UK tour, the sisters from Illinois had come to London for the first time and, eschewing the grand halls of the capitol sought to bring a little heaven to earth in Camden.
It’s impossible not to be enchanted by the pair. Their reputation is built on their skill with their instruments and the The Harp Twins sharp arrangements of classic rock and Heavy Metal tracks that opened up their career.Â
What you also get with the pair is their well-practised comedic chops, the in-between song banter as vital to their shows as the music, be it the tongue-in-cheek sisterly squabbling or cajoling the crowd with deadpan delivery.
This, though, was the added bonus to the evening, as Camille and Kennerly opened the show with their take on Metallica’s emotive monster Nothing Else Matters before heading into darker territory with the original The Worm Song, the vocals and twisted music giving off Addams Family vibes.
Mixing well-crafted self-penned songs, the ethereal Secrets Of Science and The Wolf Lullaby sounded like a cross between Enya and The Cranberries with Aerosmith’s Dream On, a number that suited the harp with jaw-dropping perfection.
Highway to Hell? It all really worked. In Camille’s introduction to the latter, everyone was informed that the track was dedicated to an old music teacher who said the twins would never have a career. She closed with the killer line, “We’re not saying she’s going there…we don’t make those decisions.” 
With a very funny argument ensuing between the sisters and the audience regarding cowbells for Don’t Fear The Reaper and a virtuoso performance of Iron Maiden’s Fear Of The Dark, “We have to play six thousand, five hundred and five notes in this track… we’ve counted,” those gathered didn’t know whether to headbang or swoon.
The introduction of touring friends The Volfgang Twins brought the slightly surreal sight of the well-muscled Viking Metal twins pounding the life out of their single war drums whilst the two visions in crimson weaved between them, their quicksilver fingers a blur. 
The haunting Call Of The Valkyrie and the compelling storytelling of Sacred Mountain brought together harp and drums in a way that sounded like a match made in some Nordic heaven.
The thumping rhythms and delicately plucked strings during Paranoid and Paint It Black were intoxicating, beauty and beast in perfect harmony. Exhilarating and incandescent, this was the music of the gods.
Tezaura
Opening the night, Czech quartet Tezaura were also making their London debut, and if the nine-hour drive from Glasgow that day was exhausting, they certainly didn’t show it. 
There’s a grace at work here to their industrial take on Metal, the grinding riffs and splintering drums hitting like a sledgehammer whilst the voice of Lori soars above it all with a symphonic rock sensibility spattered with something akin to pop touches.
This isn’t some awkward mash-up, though, and the band rocks hard, the punch of the music accented perfectly with the soaring vocals as the dynamics explode in a storm of beautiful noise. 
Our Weird Way opens the set in a rush of adrenaline, the precise fretwork of Nemo displaying a mix of surgical attack and brutality when joined by the bass and drums as Lori throws herself around.
Blistering numbers like a raging The Perfectionist and the unsettling Scarecrows manage to get the early crowd moving, the Czech outfit seemingly overjoyed to be onstage and tearing things up in front of an audience again. 
Those Eyes shows a mastery of light and shade, and the Rammstein-heavy sledgehammer of In The Clouds is perfectly juxtaposed with the sweet but powerful vocals.
Closing with a vital Heavenhell that saw the singer film her bandmates and the audience on her phone, it was all over for the night, a well-earned rest after the outfit had poured out any last reserves of energy. 
Tezaura deserves to be noticed, and with the material and commitment they have, they are making waves that are unmissable. Your new addiction.
