Kokomo - Whip (2026)

Last month, at dunk!festival I witnessed tons of incredible gigs thrown by fantastic artists, but it was Kokomo and the monument of a show they created that was the biggest positive surprise for me. It's not like I hadn't been expecting it to be a great concert, it was just so much more. And now, when I listen to the Germans' 6th album, I revisit this moment and I'm certain that this is one of the best post-rock gems of the year.

And it's already been a lot of them! But Kokomo's album is somewhat different. The band is for me first of all the "bear album" guys and yes, If Wolves is still one of my highest rated post-rock albums ever, but since 2011 Kokomo are constantly evolving and Whip seems to be the pinnacle of this evolution from atmospheric, but also melodic and more traditional guitar-centred post-rock to pure atmosphere built with guitars. There is a difference, I assure you. At least I can hear it. It's more like a walk through a cathedral than listening to music for me.

The clue of this music now is the atmosphere generated by a unified wall of guitar sound in which you can hardly hear particular elements but you focus on the heaviness of the whole instead. This is introduced very early in the single track A Torinói Ló and doesn't really stop until the end of the release. Of course this, together with frequent additions of metal-like vocals that do not constitute the focal points of the compositions but rather signal the highest-tempo, most ecstatic moments of the music, this puts Whip probably closer to post-metal , but who cares about labels? What is important is that the music here is spectacular.

Whip costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: 1758 Times of Weird Sadness

Country: Germany

Genre: heavy post-rock/post-metal

Label: dunk!records

Kokomo - Totem Youth (2019)

:bandcamp:

:facebook:
:official:

:instagram:

:spotify:

Sagor Som Leder Mot Slutet - IV (2026)

Friends and foes (although they seem to have stopped saying that), the new album from Sagor Som Leder Mot Slutet just dropped. And it did drop to the very bottom of the planet chasms as it is "inspired by the core of the earth" with music heavy as our world and just as beautiful. This is one of the albums that effortlessly mixes the melodic and the overwhelming kinds of post-rock to create a one of a kind experience.

The heavy and poignant post-rock sub-genre has already made a mark on this year with Syberia's new release. But it seems that the relentless, never-giving-up guitar music is in great shape as the Swede's *checks notes* fourth album is most certainly just as good. Dark as basalt, heavy as granite but also hot as molten lava and filled with the same strange, forbidden beauty. The way the surprisingly frequent melodic parts are paired here with powerful, overwhelming sound avalanches is truly inspiring. It works very well especially in the longest tracks (like Strävan that finishes with the airy, folk-like sequence or Karg's mining-like mesmerizing riffs). 

The inspirations for the album are pretty obvious. The Scandinavian landscape and atmosphere even exaggerated with the notion of the unfathomable weight of the Earth's rock core. And you can feel it in your bones, but most probably it's only a trial version compared to what the live performance of this album will.

IV costs 11 EUR (120 SEK).

Check: Rot

Country: Sweden

Genre: heavy post-rock

Sagor Som Leder Mot Slutet - III (2022)

:bandcamp:

:facebook:
:official:

:instagram:

:spotify:

Oak - EP (2025)

Oak is both a tree and a music band from France. As one could guess, the artists are very closely rooted (haha) to the allegory provided by the band's name, stating, amon other things, that it was "planted in 2009". It's been a while now and Oak don't have a massive discography so it's always a good thing that they decided to show something to the world with this year's EP called EP.

"Oak has not yet reached its canopy" is another of quotes form the band and I can't help but wonder what that will look like when it finally happens. Because the little material we have suggests that there is a huge potential for massive, atmospheric post-rock sound somewhere in Oak's core. The EP is short, even if the second track reaches some impressive time stamp, so it's very difficult to access, but I like what I hear. The guitar-oriented, classic post-rock doesn't really seek tons of melodies, rather it's focused on the heaviness of the sound and this is something I appreciate very much. I will keep my eyes on this one (another one with so many fantastic ones around!) French post-rock collective.

EP costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Fear Carries the Grace of Stillness

Country: France

Genre: heavy post-rock

Label: ITAWAK RECORDS

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:instagram:

:youtube:

:spotify:

T E S A - I N T E R V A L (2025)

The Latvian TESA is a band that never disappoints. Never. The Baltic giants create their metal-like heavy post-rock or rock-like light post-metal with grace and with consistency that characterize only great artists. Although their new album is entitles Interval, it doesn't feel like it's any kind of transition or pause. It's as good as ever been and ever will be, I'm sure of it.

The Eastern equivalent of the French heavy noise of Year of No Light start the album with a fast and heavy hit in the face. While the long tracks change pace and melodies very often, the first seconds of the album are here to remind you, dear listener, what are you signing up for. A hurricane of massive sounds that are designed to spare no one. It's interesting that the tracks are so diverse: there is many sudden changes so when the listener is emerged in one of the passages, they are brutally waken up from the trance by a different melody, different direction the track suddenly switches to.

Nevertheless, the sound here is quite literally overwhelming and forcing you to stop and fall in love with its relentless power. This is the very nature of TESA. 

I N T E R V A L costs 9 EUR.

Check: Interval II

Country: Latvia

Genre: massive post-rock

Label: My Proud Mountain

T E S A - C O N T R O L (2020)

TESA - G H O S T ( 2015)

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:instagram:

:spotify:

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

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:instagram:

:spotify: