Remember the first time you heard an album that made you think and feel as if something epic, cinematic even, was unfolding right in front of you? Welcome to that feeling again. Today we have the privilege of premiering the newest album from Lost in Kiev, Persona. I went into…
Parisian post-rockers, Lost in Kiev, present their third full-length, Persona, through the welcoming arms of record label, Pelagic, which will, if there is any justice, crack open the band’s exposure to an entirely new and larger audience. This album hurtles through all types of different dimensions while exploring and examining…
Doot doot, haha it’s Nick Cusworth here, just like usual, writing the intro to this installment of Post Rock Post! Jazz is good and uuhhhh, other stuff that Nick says. Seriously though folks, Eden here (you fell for my clever ruse, did you not?) writing this intro to what can…
Post-rock is dead! Post-rock is dying! Post-rock never happened! You’ve probably heard all three of these things (OK, probably not the last one) over the past few years. In a way, those are accurate statements but only if you have a very narrow definition of what post-rock is.
The thing about a year as good for music as 2018 has been is that it’s easy to forget albums, even the better ones out there. It’s not just a case of quantity alone; it’s what it does to the mind. It makes the year feel longer and thus, even…
There’s a lot happening in the music world, and we here at Heavy Blog try our very best to keep up with it! Like the vast majority of heavy music fans, our tastes are incredibly vast, with our 3X3s in each Playlist Update typically covering numerous genres and sometimes a…
Alright folks, hold on to your seats because this one is going to get wild. Allow me to introduce you to Alters, an extremely interesting band from Poland. Nominally, their thing is a blend of progressive rock and post rock. The progressive parts take a very distinct influence from one Steven Wilson, with the opening tracks to their most recent album, Dawn, sounding a lot like Porcupine Tree. “Hypnagogia” and, even more so, the self-titled track which open the album have all the unique identifiers you’d associate with this style of progressive rock. The drums are loud, the vocalist seems aloof and depressed, the guitars are influenced by classic progressive rock but with an exceedingly modern sound. So far, so good; things are pleasant and well made, if not totally original or mind-blowing.
The third track, “Klechdawa”, starts in the same manner. Indeed, it goes on in that manner until its mid-point. But then, there’s a break and everything changes.
Looking at the influences that made Soldat Hans happen sheds a bit more light on where the band members come from when approaching these issues; many of the acts listed below tap into this same desire to feel, face and excise such emotions in a healthy and productive way. Especially noteworthy is the wide range of artists presented below. Most of them have some melancholic or even depressive edge but they take different approaches in expressing these edges. Thus, we get a glance into how a diverse sound such as Soldat Hans was forged and the many places in other music from which it came. Enjoy and don’t forget to spin Es Taut when you feel up to it; it’s a ride you should experience at least once.
In a sense, trying to get my meaning across with these opening paragraphs is more akin to post rock than I’d thought. And that’s what I’d like to leave you with before we dive into this month’s picks: we don’t make this list just to showcase our taste or highlight great bands (although the latter is a big part of it, for sure). We also do it because we feel like post rock is an important genre with important things to say, things which relate to the basic human condition, our hopes, dreams, failures and expectations of the world us. So as you go deeper into this post, try asking yourself what emotions, modes of thoughts and perspectives is this mostly instrumental music trying to get across to me? What is being communicated by and underneath the music I am listening to?
It’s difficult to know what to make of a band when they unequivocally fall into a certain genre and yet shirk all the features that seemingly describe membership to it. Post-rock has for so long now been wholly defined by its reliance on a handful of rehashed ideas that it…
