Aortes - Carrion (2025)

It took 6 years and one change of name for the Lithuanian post-metal outfit (now called) Aortes come back on my blog. And there is a good reason for that too as their new album (second under this moniker and 5th in general) is a masterful dose of heavy atmosphere and post-hardcore anger.

The artists themselves think highly about the release, calling it a "brand new and more mature sounding album" and I have to agree. It is no simple post-metal/hardcore music here, it's more nuanced, deeper and more attractive face of the genre while still retaining the clue of this kind of sound: energy and expression. However, parts such as Carrion with the spoken word vocals or the addition of the saxophone sound in the same song, or an entire ambient intermission in Black Mold make me appreciate the release even more. Not to mention that they, simply speaking, turn up the atmosphere of this dense music.

I can't stress enough how good the atmosphere is on this album. It's unsettling like an alarm siren, it's heavy like a tank, it's slow and steady and suddenly very fast. I love it, especially on When We Cease, a track that left me lying on the ground overwhelmed by its weight. Fantastic stuff.

Carrion costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: When We Cease

Country: Lithuania

Genre: noisy post-metal

Autism - Have You Found Peace? (2019)

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Autism - Have You Found Peace? (2019) EN

Autism, at least this Autism, are from Lithuania, and their heavy post-rock a.k.a. post-metal a.k.a. post-hardcore play from seven years (when they released their first EP). This year, they make a statement about the level of their music with Have You Found Peace? where they show how to express a very peculiar story with the usage of music. 

The Lithuanians' album is well-thought through down to the smallest details. It makes a story of a teenager called Nolan who, after an accident, deals with guilt and psychological problems. The boy writes some unsettling letters only to disappear in the end. The album, as the band state, is an "epitome of the band’s use of cinematic storytelling, and is somewhat of a musical Gesamtkunstwerk", a story told mostly with crushingly melancholic and extremely disquieting guitars.

But only with them. An important person of the album is Krzysztof Traczyk, a member of the Warsaw-based band ROSK. Here, he is responsible not only for his expressive vocals, but also for fantastically good at atmosphere creation fragments of spoken storytelling (for example in the mind infecting Tremorous Luminance). And it's not the end of the long list of guests, there's also another musician of ROSK - Mateusz Szymański and artists playing on saxophone and cello that enrich the already complex post-metal passages in Haunting Recollections.

Have You Found Peace? costs 7 EUR.

Check: Haunting Recollections 

Country: Lithuania

Genre: epic post-hardcore

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Autism - Have You Found Peace? (2019) PL

Autism, przynajmniej ten konkretny, jest z Litwy, a swój ciężki post-rock vel post-metal vel post-hardcore gra od siedmiu lat (wtedy wydali pierwszą EP-kę). W tym roku potwierdzają swój poziom na Have You Found Peace?, na którym pokazują jak muzyką oddać pewną nadzwyczaj niepokojącą historię.

Płyta Litwinów jest przemyślana do najmniejszych szczegółów. Układa się ona w historię nastoletniego Nolana, który od czasu wypadku boryka się z wyrzutami sumienia i problemami psychicznymi. Chłopak pisze niepokojące listy, a w końcu znika. Album, jak pisze sam zespół, to "typowy przykład użycia przez niego kinowego storytellingu w pewnym sensie muzyczny Gesamtkunstwerk (synteza sztuk)", historia opowiedziana głównie przytłaczająco melancholijnymi i niezwykle niepokojącymi gitarami.

Ale nie tylko. Ważna postacią na krążku jest Krzysztof Traczyk, na co dzień muzyk warszawskiego ROSK. Tutaj odpowiada nie tylko za ekspresyjne wokale, ale również za budujące kawał klimatu fragmenty mówionego storytellingu (jak te na zapadającym w umysł Tremorous Luminance). To zresztą nie koniec bogatej liści gości, bo wśród nich jest też kolejny muzyk ROSK - Mateusz Szymański, a także muzycy grający na saksofonie i wiolonczeli, które w Haunting Recollections ubogacają jeszcze post-metalowe pasaże z Litwy.

Have You Found Peace? kosztuje 31 złotych (7 EUR).

Sprawdź: Haunting Recollections 

Kraj: Litwa

Szufladka: epic post-hardcore

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