Decline of the I - Wilhelm (2025)

I had post-metal debutants this week, now it's the time for the genre's old timers. However, we won't go far from the existential themes exploration in heavy, yet spiritual music. The French Decline of the I released their fifth album and did it with a (surprisingly experimental) bang.

Released by the Polish label Agonia Records, the album marries very traditional metal elements with airy and spiritual ones while still creating a coherent whole. The gregorians-like chanting is kept in check by angry vocals so that nothing here takes control over the music and the balance is in place. The same goes with samples, spoken word parts, tear-jerking violins in backgrounds. This black metal is filled with eclectic ornaments that make the album stand out.

The album is the second part of the trilogy devoted to Søren Kierkegaard and his existentialist philosophy, one that could only be illustrated so well by the sound of black metal. As the band's leader, AK, admits, the album constitutes "a constrained dive into the angst of ethics", or, as I would call it, an exciting, yet depressing and overwhelming at times, lesson on existentialism.

Band picture by William Lacalmontie. Wilhelm costs 11 USD.

Check: Éros N

Country: France

Genre: eclectic black metal

Label: Agonia Records

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BIG|BRAVE - nature morte (2023)

The Canadian trio of BIG|BRAVE is certainly already the icon of this kind of slow but extremely expressive kind of post-metal music. Their new album, nature morte, may be around their peak performance that should touch to the sole anyone listening.

According to the Bandcamp account, the music here is composed of "distorted and textural drones, austere bombast, and Wattie’s heart-rending voice". The abrupt, bullet shot-like bursts of noise with the relative silence between them, make one of the most unnerving kind of music ever. Especially that there's no half measures here: it's either extremely loud and heavy or worryingly idle. But this is nothing compared to Robin Wattie's vocals that are THE most emotional and desperate-sounding ones out there. The amount of feeling they express and project on the listeners is fathomless. The vocals and the music combined create one of the most poignant stories in the modern music, probably on par with Lingua Ignota's depressive poetry. 

nature morte costs 10 USD.

Check: carvers, farriers and knaves

Country: Canada

Genre: drone metal

Label: Thrill Jockey Records.

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Rodent Destroyer - Nespurrth (2021)

Even though this project may be considered a joke or even a mockery towards metal music, everybody should know about it. Rodent Destroyer is Human Slave a.k.a. Alister Reed from Pennsylvania, but it's not the end of the line-up as other band members include... Reed's cats. This makes the name of the project as well as all the album and tracks' names making sense and I love it, while, at the same time, Nespurrth is at the same time genuinely enjoyable. 

The cats are vocalists here. And I would have never said that cat meows fit metal music so well. They probably don't perform life but in the album versions, they do brilliantly. They add ferocity to the already utterly crazy and thrilling music here. And it's no exaggeration, the pace is extreme, the guitar sounds are crude and nerve-wrecking (in the lo-fi, very black metal manner) and the songs... very satisfying. Each is delivered with a pun in the title (my favourite being Enslaved by Pawpaganda which I'm not sure cats would actually sing, they would rather be the imposing part here) and with cat (and human) vocals all over the compositions. And an important notice here: even though the project was established only last year, they managed to release the third album already and even change the vocalist, as on Nespurrth it is Zelda not Lord Purr anymore who produces vocal samples.

Nespurrth costs 8 USD.

Check: Where the Sliamese Live

Country: Pennsylvania, US

Genre: feline black metal

Label: Above Ground Records

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Morto - Sentir (2020) EN

I don't have to convince anyone about the Brazilian around-post-metal scene's strength (*COUGH* Labirinto *COUGH*) and now we witness this again. This time it's the country's North's Natal-based quartet who in January released their debut album called Sentir.

Introducing themselves as playing experimental metal influenced by everything from crust to post-rock, the musicians definitely dont' hesitate to make really long, complex songs. You can easily notice there those post-rock inspirations and, perhaps it's a bit too much though, you could say that it's basically post-rock with the hoarse, very metal-like vocals. How monumental their tracks are is best seen in Ausente, almost 16-minutes-long song filed with slow guitar music entangled with heart-touching metal.

Sentir costs 7 USD.

Check: Ausente

Country: Brazil

Genre: metallic post-rock

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Morto - Sentir (2020) PL

O sile brazylijskiej sceny około-post-metalowej przekonywać nikogo nie trzeba (*COUGH* Labirinto *COUGH*) i właśnie po raz kolejny się o tym przekonujemy. Tym razem dzięki kwartetowi z Natal z północy kraju. Zespół wydał w styczniu swój debiutancki album Sentir.

Przedstawiający się jako grający eksperymentalny metal z naleciałościami ze wszystkiego od crustu po post-rock muzycy zdecydowanie nie stronią od grania długich, kompleksowych kompozycji. Czuć w nich właśnie te post-rockowe inspiracje i, trochę na wyrost, ale tylko trochę, stwierdzić można, że jest to trochę post-rock z chrapliwym, bardzo metalowym wokalem. To jak monumentalne są kawałki Brazylijczyków najlepiej widać w Ausente, prawie 16-minutowym utworze wypełnionym niespiesznym gitarowym graniem przeplatanym z chwytającym za serce metalem. 

Sentir kosztuje 27 złotych (7 USD).

Sprawdź: Ausente

Kraj: Brazylia

Szufladka: metallic post-rock

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