Syberia - Quan tot s'apagui (2026)

When I'm asked about the loudest concert I've ever been to, I mention MBV at OFF Festival and Syberia's gig in a tiny cellar in Kraków, where five guys barely fitting the small stage filled the space with extreme atmospheric noise. I'm ecstatic to listen to their new album that is all about the same glorious experience: the guitar noise that makes you fly.

Quan tot s'apagui (that translates roughly to "When everything goes out") is another album in recent months that is filled with dark and heavy post-rock. Yes, this is the band's signature sound (with Ain't.Care.About.Bullets as one of my very favourite post-rock tracks ever), but it's also a trend that must be fueled with whatever is going on with the world right now. But this darkness is also filled with energy (which usually is not a good sign, but this time it really is). The guitars gallop furiously most of the time, the walls of noise come at you one by one and I just loooove how the drums work here. This music is extreme, doesn't let you breathe even for a second, but it doesn't matter. You only want to breathe the sound.

Coming back to the Kraków concert: some enthusiastic but not very good at geopolitical matters bloke shouted "Viva España!" at the band (with good intentions) to which the artists politely corrected him that they are from Catalonia. And this brings me to the last point about the album: it is their first work in their own language which I respect extremely!

Quan tot s'apagui costs 9.99 EUR.

Check: naixença d'una mort tranquil·la

Country: Catalonia/Spain

Genre: dark post-rock

Label: Moment of Collapse Records

Syberia - Statement on Death (2022)

Syberia - Seeds of Change (2019)

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The Lions Constellation - New Moon Rising (2025)

This year I already posted about ARIMA, melodic and noisy guitar rock music from Spain, but not really as they are from the Basque Country. Now I have The Lions Constellation, melodic and noisy guitar music from Spain, but not really as they are from Catalonia. It took 15 years (!) for the band to release their second album, but I'm gonna call it: it was really worth it.

I love shoegaze music that can impress with the noisy side and the catchy side as well. When listen to this album, released last autumn (I still haven't caught up with the new year releases!), I can hear exactly this. Take Allison for example: obviously the first thing I checked was if it was a cover, but no: and instead of focusing on the other Allison's hazy atmosphere, it presents a fantastic melody and catchy flow that makes it closer to the third Allison, the one from The Kills. It's a banger and still isn't my favourite one here.

The very shoegaze-like atmosphere is, on the other, the main focus in some spaces too, especially in When You Dream, which HAS TO be a reference to When You Sleep, right? Same vibes. But the melodic, hit-heavy shoegaze generally overshadows anything else on the album with A Long Life Is Not a Real Life being my favourite song here as it features my beloved way of using guitars in noisy music genres.

New Moon Rising costs 9 USD.

Check: A Long Life Is Not a Real Life

Country: Catalonia/Spain

Genre: catchy shoegaze

Label: Shelflife

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Blak - Mont Solitud (2025)

Post-rock so complex that you can't really keep up with everything that goes on and yet everything sounding coherent and atmosphere-inducing? This is the Catalan band Black's sophomore album called Mont Solitud and the sheer energy of the track here, together with the perfect execution of the ideas, makes me wanna say that it is my favourite post-rock album of the year so far!

I don't know how to explain it, but this music feels so genuinely wild. It's vibrant, it's wild, it's a bit chaotic. The noisy parts are very noisy, the calmer parts feel like the calm before storm. To me it's clear that the artists feel the music, that there is notching artificial in their compositions. One more thing that facilitates this feeling is that the second track of the album, La solitud és gàbia, features my favourite Chinese post-rockers, An Corporation, and if any music should be called the most genuinely energy-filled, it would probably be them.And yes, the results are spectacular.

The band describes their music as "an instrumental journey through the many faces of solitude", but to be honest I don't hear the solitude here. Rather the opposite, there is so much going on in every second of the album, there are guest artists, there is the special "collaborative song I Am You, featuring the voices of 50 people who joined in to sing with us", which I don't know what it is about, but doesn't sound solitaire at all. But perhaps the artist's wanted to explain that even though you are joined by many people in your life, in the end, you are alone anyway. Sad, but true. And explained in a fantastic way.

Mont Solitud costs 7 EUR.

Check: La solitud és gàbia

Country: Catalonia /Spain

Genre: complex post-rock

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Vlack Salzo - Saeculum (2022)

The Catalan band (or a solo musician, I'm not entirely sure) make certainly, together with Syberia, the most interesting post-rock outfit in Barcelona. They recently came back with their sophomore album called Saeculum to prove it once again.

The post-rock offered by the Catalan project certainly feels like a heavy (or even heavy-metal-like) kind of the genre: with much of the time devoted to guitar riffs but without forgetting about the massive atmosphere to generate. I feel like the music on the album brings together best of the two worlds: it is crunchy and catchy on one hand and moody and atmospheric on the other. The compositions are prepared in such a way that there's no room for static passages, but rather the music is filled with pace-changing, complex guitar structures - like it is in The Crowd, a track opened with a field recording and finished with a raw guitar solo. Not to mention This Is All We Are which finishes the whole album with an impressive, chaotically loud crescendo.

Also, I have to say that the album cover must be one of my favourite ones this year.

Saeculum costs 7 EUR.

Vlack Salzo - Mareternum (2019)

Check: This Is All We Are

Country: Catalonia/Spain

Genre: heavy post-rock

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Catástrofe Club - El crecimiento infinito (2022)

Catástrofe Club are from Catalonia and make some super interesting post-punk-like eclectic music. The Josep Maria Herrera-David Molina duo are self-proclaimed "portraitists of the global catastrophe" who "compose and create with a particular sense of tragicomedy" and with an impressive approach to mixing genres in order to create a poignant message in an attractive form, just as it is on their new album.

El crecimiento infinito is the final part of their long play trilogy. My first thought when listening to this album was to check if this was a side project of Oscar D'Aniello a.k.a. Delafé, Spanish indie pop slash spoken word hip-hop artist the first albums of whom I really enjoyed back in the day. It's obviously not, but Herrera's voice and, most importantly, the spoken word way of "singing" bears strong resemblance here. However, the project, although very melodic, is far from a chill indie pop: it's post-punk delivered in various unique ways, so unfamiliar for the genre. The flow and catchiness of pop music and the lively electronica the compositions are built on are not your typical post-punk accessories.

However the whole theme they point the audience at, as they "question the individual, but in a somewhat calmer way, accepting the collapse and fatality of a social tragedy as something certain and inevitable that can only be contemplated", the collapse that has many reasons, but most importantly the consumptive way of life and the heavy but clever critique the artists employ, is taken right from the post-punk handbooks. So is the overall minimalism and slower pace that create this fantastic atmosphere within which the mesmerizing spoken word phrases go on and on and drill into the listener's mind.

El crecimiento infinito costs 8 EUR.

Check: Safari

Country: Catalonia/Spain

Genre: electronic post-punk

Label: Hidden Track Records

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Böira - Cendres ~ Mineral (2021)

The second post-rock band hailing from Spain/Catalonia recently here, this is Böira - a five-piece collective of heavy guitar sounds and very unique compositions. They released their debut album back in 2015 but I hadn't known them before the release of this year's Cendres ~ Mineral. Which is really, really good.

The Barcelona-based band's music is pretty much the perfect balance of lively and adrenaline-packed mathrock and the atmosphere-oriented, darker post-rock. The latter is provided not only by the slower pace of some parts within their compositions but most notably by the absolutely outstanding use of piano/keyboards - they are not only beautiful ornaments like it often is but the core element of the music here without being brought towards synth-heavy futuristic post-rock like, say, Tides from Nebula now. It's a darker, more neoclassical way of piano music incorporated into post-rock, often quite fast, environment, and well done too.

As I said, this is not a dark ballad-like instrumental music, there is pace, energy and heaviness here, at some points, the heavy, almost metal-like guitars take over, as in Obaga or Brot with its similarly metal drums, and carry the compositions until the ever-emerging piano comes back. These are piano-soundscapes but with turned-on speed and heavier impact. 

Cendres ~ Mineral costs 5 EUR.

Check: Postcards

Country: Spain/Catalonia

Genre: piano-led post-rock

Label: Aloud Music Ltd.

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Syberia - Seeds of Change (2019) EN

This album is already three months old, but I'd be damned if I didn't write about it here. The Catalan Syberia stormed my ears with the high quality post-rock hidden behind the very post-hardcore cover art of the album Seeds of Change.

They state that the Russia's wilderness' name came from the Turkish for "asleep land”. If it's true than it's not very much present in the band's music. This furious, loud and keen to explore post-rock conquers loud-speakers and makes it absolutely impossible to forget it. The band creates "intricate and involving post-rock opuses, and they have never sounded more assured than on >Seeds Of Change<".

It's best reflected in the sound of guitars that on the Catalans' album can be both melodic and painfully loud. And also diverse as the artists write about their creative process: "the ideas started flowing and we weren't shy about trying different things and approaching soundscapes we hadn't explored previously" and it's felt. It's also fitting for the album's general them revolving around the title's seeds of change in society resulting in revolution.

Seeds of Change costs 8.99 USD.

Check: After the Uprising

Country: Catalonia/Spain

Genre: Guitar post-rock

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Tittyshev - Playoff (2019) EN

The Catalonian band Tittyshev have been making first steps on the shoegaze scene of Spain for a while now. They now released a short EP Playoff which made them debut on this blog.

They describe themselves in simple but meaningful words: "noisy entities with pop hearts". This short EP shows this well. It's ruled by the guitar noise out of which the melodies are made still being of secondary importance. Behind them there's withdrawn, indie pop vocal hidden. In comparison with other similar bands, the Catalonians are really focused on the noise that is bigger and more important. And it's so good as the musicians make it well, especially in tracks such as Otra vida and Hazte tú la cena.

Playoff  costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Hazte tú la cena

Country: Catalonia/Spain

Genre: melodic shogeaze

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Vlack Salzo - Mareternum (2019) EN

The Catalan Vlack Salzo play proudly epic and very guitar-oriented post-rock. Try what they are capable of on their May album called Mareternum. 

Based on the hard, unnerving sounds of guitars instrumental music by the Barcelona-based artists makes an energetic dose of music adrenaline infused through headphones. Fast pace, diverse melodies, tangled motifs and finally the more peaceful fragments played on piano keys that give some place to breathe but also announce the incoming lively sections. As it is in Luna 9 in which the finish is found in space-sounds-infused crescendo.

Another thing is the samples adding up to the poignant in this music. First of all in Arctic Blooms where the majority of time is occupied by environmental and very sad monologue. So the Catalans  put into their music not only the heart and energy but also some deeper message.

Mareternum costs 7 EUR.

Check: Luna 9

Country: Spain

Genre: guitar post-rock

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Red Rosie - Can't Come Down (2017) EN

Red Rosie is a Spanish/Catalonian (although the names Collier and Macmillan suggest something else...) duet of dreampop twee goths. And as the label suggests, oneiric and dreamy compositions are served in a lo-fi manner with airy and catchy melodies and slightly dark atmosphere.

"Can't Come Down" is a short EP but shows the band's potential. The most interesting track here is "Kiss", a track created as a dialogue between a female vocal and a male one. The male one is appropriately deep and the female one appropriately dreamy and, what's as much important, the melody is beautiful and dwells in a brain on its own. Also important is that the income from the album is to be spent on charity. I'd like to hear more from them.

The EP costs 3 EUR.

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