Post Rock

Record #686: Explosions in the Sky – The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place (2003)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As far as emotional, instrumental, climactic post rock is concerned, Explosions in the Sky is about as close to the Platonic ideal that you can get. Barring their most recent (and mostly electronic) The Wilderness, their catalog is filled with the kind of gorgeous, evocative, almost storytelling kind of music that Mogwai pioneered and throngs of post rock bands have tried to emulate.

But truth be told, as much as I love the albums on either side of this, I’m not too familiar with The Earth Is Not… In fact, I actually bought this one on accident. 

Given their nearly flawless track record though, I’m not mad about it.

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Record #680: Battles – Mirrored (2007)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

When you’re exploring new music, occasionally you come across love-at-first-site records—albums that immediately latch themselves to your psyche when you first hear them. Then, there are slow burns—records that take a little more exploration, but fully envelop you in their sonic arms.

Then, there are great, unknowable beasts: eldritch albums with a hundred eyes and a thousand tentacles that never stop swirling long enough for you to get a good look at them. You are left only with a roaring, gaping impression of the unearthly monstrosity. Every glance uncovers additional layers, peeling themselves away endlessly to unrecognizable shapes until it isn’t the album you thought you listened to the last time.

Mirrored has been one of these albums for me: an ancient, Lovecraftian record that changes color and shape with every repeated listen. But after a decade of trying to wrap my head around it, I’ve finally embraced the madness.

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Record #674: Alcest – Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde (2007)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

After the other two members of traditional black metal band Alcest left, soon-to-be French metal icon Neige decided to use the project—or at least the name—as a vehicle for his own experimental mix of black metal, shoegaze, post rock, and gothic.

As a child, Neige would often dream that he was visiting a forest filled with glowing, enchanted creatures from another world. On Alcest’s debut full-length, the suitably titled Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde (Souvenirs from Another World), Neige explores what he’s always imagined the music of that land to sound like.

The results are just as otherworldly as advertised, though it shows mere glimpses of where Alcest would go in their now legendary career.

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Record #668: Envy – Insomniac Doze (2006)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As long as I’ve been in the emosphere (read: like 2001 or so), I’ve somehow entirely ignored Japanese screamo pioneers Envy. It’s quite likely that I heard their names thrown around with acts like Orchid and Loma Prieta that I didn’t like at all, and assumed they would carry all of the same abrasiveness.

Had I known though that they leaned much closer to post rock than to hardcore, I wouldn’t have waited fifteen years to listen to this masterpiece.

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Record #665: Elliott – Song in the Air (2003)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

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As convenient as online shopping has made it to find all the exact records that you’re looking for, perusing a record store can bring gems that you would have otherwise ignored.

Case in point: Song in the Air by Elliott, which I found at Planet Retro in St. Pete while browsing their impressive Punk/Metal section (Kate Bush was in there too, so take “punk/metal” with a grain of salt). Having been tangentially aware of them, I pulled up Spotify and scanned through some of the songs.

What I found was a powerful emo record that gets most of its emotional weight from the intricacy of its songwriting rather than the bombast of its arrangements.

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Record #650: The End of the Ocean – -aire (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Post rock is typically a patient genre. Bands build elaborate landscapes of cinematic splendor and emotional catharsis that evoke the heights and depths of the human experience. But this usually takes a while: it’s not unusual for a post rock tune to sail right past the seven-minute mark—or even the ten minute mark.

But on -aire, The End of the Ocean achieves the same evocative heights without wasting any time.

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Record #649: Driving Slow Motion – Arda (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

One of the most interesting things about post rock is that as clear as the conventions of the genre are, it’s a rare thing for a band to put out a record that hits all the right notes without seeming derivative.

But on their debut full-length, Texas natives Driving Slow Motion offer up a brand of heavy post rock that feels fresh without adding too much to the tried-and-true post rock formula.

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Record #641: HarborLights – Isolation Ritual (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Musical taxonomy is an interesting thing. Genres twist and mingle like gnarled branches, running parallel to one another but being careful not to touch.

Take for instance, metal and emo. Despite their affinity for sonic catharsis and death, there’s very little camaraderie  between the two. However, they each have a symbiotic relationship with post rock. Metal and post rock have fed off of eachother for decades, with bands like ISIS and Mogwai liberally reaching across the branch. Similarly, emo and post rock have much more in common than loud/soft dynamics and precious sonic elements. Bands like American Football and The Appleseed Cast have been mixing the two for two decades. And yet, metal and emo have remained distinctly distant despite this shared commonality.

But on Isolation Ritual, Boston’s HarborLights bridge the gap in a way that never feels incongruous.

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Record #639: Alcest – Spiritual Instinct (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

If history is kind (and accurate) it will remember Alcest as one of the most important metal bands of all time.

After all, the flood of bands fusing the passion of black metal with the textures of shoegaze and the drama of post rock (see: Deafheaven, Oathbreaker, Brutus) are taking pages from their playbook. Their debut EP Le Secret fused these elements together in a way that many bands are still using as a blueprint—and it came out in 2005. 

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