Post Rock

Record #805: Mogwai – Atomic (2016)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Across their prolific and celebrated career, Mogwai has managed to use their ability to twist music and mood to conjure up narratives that don’t need words to be understood. So naturally, a few filmmakers have come to the Scottish post rock godfathers to help them tell their own stories.

One of these was Mark Cousins, who brought the group on for his documentary Atomic, Living In Dread and Promise, which examined the enormous possibility for both prosperity and destruction that nuclear power brings.

I haven’t seen this documentary. I’m not sure I need to. What I do know is that this album manages to capture the awe and dread of the topic with such clarity that the film might be unnecessary.

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Record #799: Godspeed You! Black Emperor – F♯ A♯ ∞ (1997)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Few bands have such celebrated reputations as  Godspeed You! Black Emperor. They are inarguably one of the pillars of the post rock movement—and rightly so. Their body of work is marked by a fiercely uncompromising vision, their albums filled with lengthy compositions that make no effort to be accessible. At this point in history, fans and critics alike revere their experimental ethos and artistic stubbornness.

But debuting with that sort of vision without the benefit of the legacy is a different sort of monster. The legendary post rock collective might be able to get away with releasing an album with two twenty-minute songs with multiple movements and no lyrics, but as a debut? That’s a bit more difficult to sell as an introduction.

Lucky for us though, Godspeed didn’t let pesky things like marketability or accessibility get in the way of their debut record.

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Record #783: M83 – DeadCities, RedSeas&LostGhosts (2003)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Before the double-album pop masterpiece that was Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming brought them widespread acclaim, M83 was an obscure, mostly instrumental act that blurred the line between shoegaze, post rock, and electronica.

On paper, the transition from experimental instrumental band to Billboard Charting Pop Group seems like it would yield albums that sound like completely different bands. However, the group’s sense of composition gives Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts the same sort of emotional storytelling and cinematic soundscapes that made Hurry Up such a huge hit.

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Record #751: The Appleseed Cast – Two Conversations (2003)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

If I seem to be contradicting myself across the different narratives I tell about how I got into the Appleseed Cast, it’s because my relationship with the band is a little contradictory. We had many passings with one another before I finally fell in love with the project, and each of those feel like a fitting introduction for a story about how someone fell in love with one of their favorite bands.

But perhaps the most impressing of those introductions was the track “Fight Song,” a driving, passionate lament that cut me to the core when I first heard it. I was already familiar with the group after hearing them on a few Deep Elm compilations, but I had never dug further. “Fight Song” convinced me that they were a band that was worth the attention.

Unfortunately, it came at a time when I was setting aside the emo/punk/hardcore scene as a whole and branching out into other genres, and so I missed it at the time. Luckily, there’s always still time.

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Record #749: The Appleseed Cast – Mare Vitalis (2000)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Across their near twenty-five year career, The Appleseed Cast has cemented themselves as a band that can do no wrong. Their work has consistently exceeded expectations, pushing their songwriting, instrumental performances, and inventive production to the limit with each release.

But what’s sometimes difficult to remember is just how quickly they jumped to that level, as seen by their 2000 full-length Mare Vitalis, a masterwork that demonstrates the group’s ability to blend emo expressiveness and post-rock atmospherics, seasoned with some bursts of post-hardcore to taste.

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Record #741: Alcest – Le Secret EP (2005/2011)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Even legends have to start somewhere. Through years of bouncing around the European black metal scene, Neige was dissatisfied with the ability of the kvlt to properly express what he had to say. Between other projects, he spent his time crafting otherworldly overtures that transcended the narrow confines of traditional black metal. In 2005, he released a pair of tracks under the name Alcest, a name he had used for another project as a teenager.

But Le Secret, that first EP, sounded nothing like the scorched-earth, burnt-church trad-black of his previous band. In fact, it didn’t sound much like anything else that had been released up to that point. The 2011 rerelease, reissued upon the success of the incredible Écailles de Lune, features rerecorded versions of each track with more resources to fulfill his original vision. But even in the face of the clearer versions, this EP demonstrates that Neige’s idea of what he meant Alcest to be has been unchanged from the beginning.

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Record #738: Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Asunder, Sweet, and Other Distress (2015)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Quebecois post rock demigods Godspeed You! Black Emperor are known for making songs that are weird, long, and loud. While this is plainly seen in all of their works, it’s perhaps best demonstrated by their 2015 album, Asunder, Sweet, and Other Distress, which for many years was performed at live shows as one single song, unofficially called “Behemoth.”

Caught on tape here for the first time (and their first album of new studio material in thirteen years) Asunder is a tour de force that showcases all of the project’s various indulgences.

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Record #737: Emma Ruth Rundle – Marked For Death (2016)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

In the last few months, my awareness of Emma Ruth Rundle has absolutely exploded. I was introduced to her most recent solo record On Dark Horses when I was assigned it while writing for a Belgium-based review site, and even then she was only introduced to me as the guitarist from Red Sparowes.

After almost a year and a half of knowing and loving just that album, I started to dig deeper, falling in love with her alternative/post-rock/psychedelic outfit Marriages, psych-folk outfit Nocturnes (someone sell me their vinyl copy plz), and her recent collaboration with doom metallurgists Thou.

But it’s taken me until a few weeks ago to listen to any of her other solo work, and once I did, the obsession continued. Marked For Death, her second song-based solo album—and regarded by many to be her best—is a crushing work of dark, brooding Southern gothic that showcases her stunning talent as both a songwriter and an ambient architect.

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Record #733: Boneflower – A(r)mour (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I have a working theory I’ve been testing the last few years. The premise is essentially that to the average layperson, their entire listening experience is driven by the vocals. Future Islands is essentially a good new wave/synthpop band, but many listeners suggest they defy labelling based on the deep, throaty growl of Samuel Herring. My own band—a heavy shoegaze/post rock outfit—is compared to Kings of Leon because my voice has a gritty, rock timbre. I’ve also heard a spacey garage rock band compared to Aretha Franklin because the singer was a black woman.

By the same token, consider Boneflower: a Spanish band that utilizes effects-heavy guitars, shifting drum rhythms, and grand instrumental compositions. Strip the vocals from it, and it could probably land somewhere near post rock (though admittedly a bit more aggressive than your typical post rock fare). Their own Bandcamp page uses the tags “alternative, post hardcore, post rock.

And yet, due to the techniques utilized by the lead singer, they are dubbed “screamo” but just about everyone who writes about them.

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