MØL - Diorama (2021)

They debuted on the world's stage (and on my blog) back in 2018 with the spectacular dose of post-metal experience in JORD. Now they show a follow-up in the form of very heavy and very noisy Diorama. The Danish band managed to get a circle of devoted followers who will not be disappointed with the new material.

The new album seems to be a bit more massive I think and more vocals-heavy too. Maybe it's just an impression but there's so much of Kim Song Sternkopf's vocals that sound very emotional with those desperate and angry vibes all over (and also horror-like, very metal ones in Tvesind). Super interesting is balancing them with contrasting, ethereal female guest voices of Mirza Radonjica and Kathrine Shepard in a couple of songs. The rapid Photophobic slowers a bit in the middle to make room for Radonjica's airy vibes and feels even faster afterwards. The change of pace feels really well also in Vestige, a brilliant track that won't leave anyone standing still.

I'm not huge fan of the clean vocals that appear from time to time; to me they always have some of the alt rock's kitsch, but luckily, they are barely noticeable on the album. What is better audible is the might and weight of the guitar music here; their sound is crisp and satisfying, slowly building up to the extremely massive finish in the album's last track Diorama. I can't not mention the album art that strikes with this kind of attractive artistic minimalism, I like it a lot.

Diorama costs 8 USD.

møl - JORD (2018)

Check: Diorama

Country: Denmark

Genre: desperate post-metal

Label: Nuclear Blast

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Fotoform - Horizons (2021)

Fotoform is a Seattle-based dream pop band who, after releasing their second album, got acknowledged by the biggest, including the iconic KEXP. No wonder, their, as they call it, dreamy post-punk is very catchy and atmospheric at the same time. You can now check it out on Horizons.

Their own description is actually very fitting: post-punk influences the way the songs are based very much on the thick, easily recognizable bass line while fuzzy guitars are left in the backgrounds most of the time. The dreamy ingredient surely include vocals by Kim House. They are properly dream-like with tons of reverbs and high-pitched beauty. There's a fine balance between them expressing actual lyrics and serving as haze-inducing backing vocals - it is so well audible in Running and You Set Fire to the Sun - a lively and melodic track with House's voice put on a pedestal. 

My favourite ones have to be the more atmospheric, moody ones. I really enjoy how the opening in Shadow Spreads is finished with the abruptly introduced silence, but songs like Let's Shut Out the World, Take and  We Crystallize make the true dreamy experience with vocals focused on creating the atmosphere and toned down melodies. Especially the finish in the latter creates a well-cooked psychedelic and noisy soundscape, one that is perfect to dream to. 

Horizons costs 8 USD.

Check: We Crystallize

Country: Washington, US

Genre: dreamy post-punk

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tom's diner - сестре (2021)

Tom's diner is a Russian band that "caters to wanderers of all sorts with an exquisite psychedelic post-rock". Their usual lineup involves more traditional for the genre guitar and drums, however, they decided to do something differently recently and so the EP сестре was born.

On this release, the Russians perform their compositions only with the help of piano keys and cello strings. It comes obvious that it makes the whole EP unbelievably climatic and beautiful. The compositions here are slow and focused on creating the intimate, discreet atmosphere. The artists decided to do so to "reveal the melody and feelings of the compositions, without being distracted by anything" and even though the leader of the band had to learn how to play on piano to record this album, it sounds like it achieved its goal. Almost all of the compositions here are the new versions of already existing tacks except for the only new one called рядом. They all, however, sound so well in their own slow and focused way.

сестре costs 2 USD.

Check: озёра (piano-cello version)

Country: Russia

Genre: neoclassical

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LLNN - Unmaker (2021)

One of the hottest heavy post-rock/post-metal names of the last month: the Danish LLNN are back with their third album and, damn, is Unmaker a loud and massive masterpiece. It is filled with the blueprints for post-metal music with extremely heavy guitars, striking compositions and impressive vocals.

The vocals by Christian Bonnesen have those particularly desperate-sounding qualities, they may sound angry or dangerous but I always assume there's some desperation in those and this makes them even more poignant and difficult not to be impressed with. Especially when they lead a composition towards such a touching and loud finish as it is the case with Scion. In Desecrator, on the other hand, they are joined by Matt McGachy, the vocalist in Cryptopsy, and his particularly deep and, honestly, very scary growls, ones that couldn't be more different and still located within the metal spectrum. This is this kind of opposition that makes a song a classic instantly.

But the vocals are not everything. I am more happy with the guitar compositions the Danish proposed on their new release. They strike the perfect balance between metal's uberfast pace and post-metal's massive slowness and, what's the most important, present the perfect quality of noise. There's something in this guitar blizzard that makes it bigger than the compositions they function in. Bigger than music itself. I love how ridiculously poignant and crushing they sound in pieces like Division. The movie music composer Peter Albrechtsen said about LLNN's new album that "[he's] obsessed with music that explores what sound can do to our body, to our mind, to our imagination" and now it's clear why we feel this music with our whole selves.

Unmaker costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Scion

Country: Denmark

Genre: massive post-metal

Label: Pelagic Records

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Child Actor & Televangel - Respawn (2021)

The Max Heath (known also as Circadion) and Natalie Plaza duo Child Actor released their forth album in collaboration with Ian Taggart, the California-based producer known also as Young God and Televangel (also known from Blue Sky Black Death). This combination is quite striking and resulted in this combination of dream pop atmosphere and hip-hop aesthetics. 

Plaza's dispersed, ethereal vocals here are combined not with a guitar-based wall of noise but with calmer but very rhythmical electronica so typical for the abstract/cloud kind of hip-hop music. But that's not all, a huge deal of the airiness comes from the multitude of vocal lines layered on each other, making tracks like Lovers Leap a truly psychedelic work of beauty. There's also more from the hip-hop genre than just the beats and heavy basses in the backgrounds; it becomes clear in Phone Doesn't Ring that involves more-spoken-work-than-rapping vocals with Plaza's angelic voice making up the backing vocals.

And most of the album sounds this way: it's an extremely ethereal take on ambitious, alternative hip-hop music. The two fairly distant music genres work so well here: the dreamy vibes soften and slow down hip-hop's intensity while its modern electronic structures give a lot of freshness to the noise pop compositions. I love when it turns towards the utterly engaging airy sonic madness like it is in Small Children, my personal favourite on the album.

Respawn costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Small Children

Country: California, US

Genre: hip-hop dream pop

Label: Fake Four Inc.

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A Ritual Sea - A Ritual Sea (2021)

Led by the couple of artists Florian Chombart and Donna McCabe, A Ritual Sea is a French-Irish band that is all about swift melodies and ethereal atmosphere. They released their debut album this fall and A Ritual Sea makes a great compilation of slightly retro dream pop-aiming music.

Fittingly inspired by the movie works by Tarkovsky, Altman and Bergman, the album presents a subtler face of indie folk/rock with a lot of airy/ethereal influences. The indie pop, even twee-like, melodies here are super swift and energetic but also delicate, just like the female and male vocals. And fittingly for the noisy dream pop genre, they are contrasted with noisy, guitar-oriented music - although I must say, it's not very loud, sounding more like a compliment to the vocals and melodies, with the noise suggesting the deeper, noisier realms but not showing those that often. Perhaps that's what "sea" in the project's name stands for: the suggestion of something massive and dangerous but showing mostly the pretty, calm face.

The songs here differ as far as the quantity of noise is concerned; I prefer the tracks that are more into the exploration of the guitar loudness - like Prisms for example where the pop tunes are only an excuse to make something messier, but truth be told, melodies like the ones in Serpentine or Saving Grace are so attractive that it's difficult not to be affected by their charm.

A Ritual Sea costs 8 EUR.

Check: Prisms

Country: Ireland

Genre: melodic noise pop

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Jeremiah Foundation - Waves (2021)

Justin and Jason Hendry make up the Jeremiah Foundation duo. The Kansas-based artists create their noisy music for years now (however, not very systematically) and it's pretty clear that it's more or less a hobby project. But the new EP, released in September Waves, makes a good, airy and pretty noisy piece of entertainment nonetheless.

On Waves, the duo decided to experiment with the process of making their music so it can sound somewhat different. The results include four tracks that combine post-punk/industrial atmosphere with noise pop/dream pop ethereal qualities. The two brothers, previously being the members of punk-rock band called Public Fred, fill their music with electronic sounds enriched by all types of loops and sampling effects, creating a thick layer of noise on which the delicate vocals are located. The electronic-guitar backgrounds can go beyond the song's frames, creating a psychedelic-rock-like drony soundscapes.

I really enjoy the more experimental sound of the two remixes presented on the album. While Seeing, Touching, Breathing makes a more pop-like melodic song, its remix gives the audience a solid dose of glitchy, psychedelic madness while the album's finish in the remix of Fiery Red Fields, brings a lot of the mesmerizing, trance-inducing qualities. Although the album is really just two tracks and their remixes, it feels actually very coherent and attractive as a whole. A solid approach to psychedelia.

Waves costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Seeing, Touching, Breathing (Old Dog Trey Glitch Mix)

Country: Kansas, US

Genre: airy psychedelic rock

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Sarah Davachi - Antiphonals (2021)

The Californian artist Sarah Davachi has already an impressive career behind her, with almost a decade filled with impressive albums. Only this year, she released two: one together with Sean McCann and one, Antiphonals, on her own.

Davachi is very well-known for her music that combines drone electronica and extremely intimate neoclassical vibes. The minimal music takes a lot from different part of the world's folk/classical scene (just take a look at what instruments she used on this album alone, the list goes on forever) but also combines very different atmosphere styles into what could be called epic minimalism. Surely, this comes from the fact that a lot of her work is based on the pipe organs sounds and those, even when used carefully, give away the feeling of massive grandeur. However, whatever instrument she uses, it always sounds gloomy and melancholic, especially that they are drowned in moody, sad drones.

Antiphonals costs 8 GBP.

Check: Magdalena

Country: California, US

Genre: drony neoclassical  

Label: Late Music

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Kraus - View No Country (2021)

I have been waiting for Will Kraus' new music since his 2018's brilliant album Path. The Texas-based artist is someone who delivers one of the loudest and heaviest shoegaze-like experience these times. He showed it before and really nothing has changed, with his new album View No Country being as loud and as beautiful as the ones before.

His idea for the music is simple: the guitar has to be loud, the vocals extremely dispersed and subtle. It works like charm. The compositions are very short, they certainly have this punk-like vibes all over: short and rapid, leaving impression on the audience and quickly go further, to the next song. The guitar sounds are very loud, but they have also this blackgaze's synth-like layer of smoothness that make them sound crushingly heavy but also extremely attractive, creating mesmerizing soundscapes that are only subtly distracted by vocals. Those are extremely dispersed, to the point that it feels almost wrong to hide singing so deep into the audio. You just listen to Expect/Deserve and can't help but feel for the barely present beautiful vocals. But that's the point, that makes Kraus' music so special; perhaps there's more into this too, perhaps it's all about the fact that beauty is very subtle and difficult to appreciate - not only in his music.

I love the way Kraus combines two very different approaches to music: the loud and rapid blitzkrieg of sound and the extremely airy and melancholic music genre. His works could easily be called punk shoegaze  but to fully appreciate that, they have to be listened to as loud as possible.

View No Country costs 7 USD.

Kraus - Path (2018)

Check: Glass Valley

Country: Texas, US

Genre: punk shoegaze

Label: Terrible Records

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Optloquat - From the Shallow (2021)

There has been an excess of the East Asian airy music recently and it doesn't seem to stop. The next one on the table is the Japanese Optloquat. Their loud, shoegazing music gives so much of the ethereal kind of energy, so much needed in the cloudy autumn times. They provided it on their debut LP album called From the Shallow.

The vocals here don't sound very airy per se, their dreamy abilities lay in the fact that they are hidden under the music and start in a very, very subtle way (even though they are very melodic). Even when the vocalist sounds more rock-like or sometimes even as if he was almost screaming (in 紡ぐ日々 where he sings in Japanese and it weirdly sound like an anime series' intro song), it still is lost under the overwhelming guitar music. It is very loud, very noisy and very energetic. The artists make it very rock-like but sometimes there's more nuance to it, forcing the music to go in a more dream-pop direction (like in Lapes). Still, it's always filled with the psychedelic energy and flow that makes the audience fall into the spiral of guitar trance; it's so well audible in Imaginary Host: ridiculously mesmerizing and catchy song. Pure, psychedelic fun.

From the Shallow costs 7 USD.

Check: Imaginary Host

Country: Japan

Genre: noisy psychedelic rock

Label: Jigsaw Records

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Lovewillsaveus - Pink (2021)

There is so little you can learn about this band except for the fact that they are from Japan and started making music this year. Pink is already their second EP and you can surely feel that there's some top-notch ethereal potential here.

Their name and the album's cover art really suggest that they play some ethereal shoegaze/dream pop music. And in a way it's true, but, like ソーベ I posted recently about, they don't include any vocals in their music. Otherwise, it sounds very shoegaze-like: the good quality of overwhelming guitar noise, slow but steady pace, subtle changes of melodies as if for choruses that never got born. I really wish there was some super airy, Asian-style female vocals on top of that, the EP would be such a great debut. It still is good but it just hits differently. Judging by the frequency of EPs getting released, we won't have to wait for new material from the Japanese for long though.

Pink costs 2.84 USD.

Check: Shining

Country: Japan

Genre: shoegaze post-rock

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Midsommar - The Dream We Had (2021)

Almost exactly two years after their first live gig in Warsaw, the dreamy band Midsommar showed their first ever EP, making sure to enrich the Polish dream pop scene. The Dream We Had makes for a good debut with its exciting melodies and airy atmosphere.

One of the driving forces for the airiness here surely is Alia Fay and her vocals: they start sounding not unlike Holy Motors' Eliann Tulve's, but soon get into higher-pitched, more female-dream-pop levels but with a unique flavour to them. Fay voice is fair and innocent, bringing a lot of light to the noisy music. As do melodies written by the band, with Soft being a strong candidate for the 2021's Polish dreamy hit like Rays of Sun by Strangers in My House was last year. The EP starts in a catchy, melodic way, but soon enough it is dirtied up with some tasty guitar noise, most noticeable in Spring's extremely ethereal choruses. I love the way it cooperates with Fay's multilayered chorus-like vocal madness here.

Their music feels light and colourful, but also hazy and mesmerizing. It can't be a coincidence that their name is also the title of one of the most colourful and haziest horror movies of all times. Can't wait for more of their music.

The Dream We Had costs 5 EUR (21 PLN).

Check: Soft

Country: Poland

Genre: hazy dream pop

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Nightcrush - You Mark Me the Deepest (2021)

They have been releasing singles for over a year now and finally decided to show their debut LP called You Mark Me the Deepest now; Nightcrush are an Italian duo Raffaele Galasso - Alessandra Cesano, who create an interesting take on ethereal wave music.

This is indeed an interesting one. The artists use a lot of synths and don't shy away from the wave genres as far as vocals and the overall mood are concerned, but at the same time they drown everything deep in the ethereal, dreamy atmosphere. The vocals are very much dispersed, shoegaze-style, the melodies withdrawn and hidden in the airy noise that is present in every second of the release. At the same time, you can hardly say it's not a loud playlist, but the massiveness of the sound builds up very slowly so you can hardly notice that a dispersed, ambient-pop like track turns into a noise soundscape shoegaze fans won't say no to. I especially like this in Lonely Sea that catches the way an actual sea creates a noise that exists mostly in the background of consciousness.

But it doesn't mean the Italians can't do some serious, full frontal noise. Moonpearl is a track the intention of which is to crush the audience from the first notes. I love how slow but steadily moving their music feels, it's not rapid like an avalanche but profoundly inevitable like glaciers. Very interesting take on noisy music.

You Mark Me the Deepest costs 7 EUR.

Check: Lonely Sea

Country: Italy

Genre: post-punk shoegaze

Label: Shunu Records

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Yenisei - Reflections (2021)

Two years ago, they debuted with the impressive The Last Cruise, and, together with Transmission Zero, they got known as the new and well-promising post-rock bands from Kraków. Yenisei were the more atmospheric and spacious ones and it's also true with their new album Reflections.

While the album opens with the genre's traditional guitar-based but also melodic Gravity, the album goes on towards compositions that are more into creating a certain, spacious atmosphere. As usual, the melodies are also present here but they are more subtle and often keys-based (like in Aftermath) which makes the whole album more delicate than the debut; in the first half, not so often turning into louder, heavier crescendos, like it is in Waves and Blurred Horizon. This second track may be a turning point for the album as its second part seems to be noisier with the fast and aggressive (but also synthy) No Escape and loudly atmospheric Memories of Times Before. This culminates in my favourite track on the album, All That You Could Become and its impressive finish. This makes me feel like the whole album was supposed to be structured as a one, almost-an-hour-long post-rock song with the beautiful start with occasional bursts of energy, slow build-up and massive release towards the end. That's some good song-writing.

Reflections costs 4.5 EUR.

Yenisei - The Last Cruise (2019)

Check: All That You Could Become

Country: Poland

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

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Suuns - The Witness (2021)

Back in 2010, the Canadian outfit released one of my favourite albums ever, their debut Zeroes QC. I got a glimpse of it when I was late to their gig at OFF Festival in Katowice. But what I heard convinced me to fall in love with the album. And while they have never come close to this perfect level, they maintain their independent, unique style which they recently included on the new release called The Witness.

Everything in their music sounds like nothing else. It's true for the bass-based tunes with synth noisy deconstructed avant-garde music around, it's true for Ben Shemie's neurotic, subtle way of singing/speaking as well. I love how it works together and how, while being very much experimental, they are able to make their music appealing and enjoyable. As in the single tracks Witness Protection and C-Thru, the melodies are subtle and demand the listener's full attention, but it only makes them more satisfying and emphasizing the weird but accordingly ambitious lyrics. I love how some tracks feel almost ridiculously minimalist with the vocals, very subtle beats and not much more (like Clarity) but they make captivating ballads anyway while other ones are based on the mesmerizing electronica/guitars combo that feels close to Zeroes QC (as the great The Fix). I respect that the band have their own unique style and that they are not afraid to use it; it makes their music so easily recognizable and, honestly, pure, experimental fun.

The Witness costs 8 USD.

Ben Shemie - A Single Point of Light (2020)

Check: Witness Protection

Country: Canada

Genre: experimental synthpop

Label: Joyful Noise Recordings

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Kælan Mikla - Undir köldum norðurljósum (2021)

I remember getting to know Kælan Mikla when they came to Poland to support King Dude three years ago. Since then, they managed to release an almost perfect album Nótt eftir nótt, threw more exciting live gigs, create solo albums and now, they're back with a new album, Undir köldum norðurljósum, that is easily as good as the last one.

There's a lot of those darkwave's dark discotheque vibes all over the release (just have a go at Ósýnileg!): the synth backgrounds burst with lively sounds while still generating the gloomy and mesmerizing atmosphere. This is only empowered by the whispering vocals singing in Icelandic, the mystic and mysterious readings quickly get out of the scale. Especially in my favourite Sólstöður with its witch-like tribal screamings adding to the exciting horror vibes (it comes with absolutely zero surprise that the track's title translates to "Solstice"). The album's title, on the other hand, means "Under the Cold Northern Lights" but, truth be told, it doesn't feel that cold; maybe there's a hint that it is freezing outside, but here, in the vicinity of hot, dancing bodies and in the warm darkness they bring, it is hot and steamy.

Although their sounds differ much, Kælan Mikla seem to be close with the French icons of Alcest: they toured together and now they collaborated in the studio as well with Hvítir Sandar being more guitar-oriented and Alcest-like atmospheric. The three witches from Iceland will be back on tour when the day get longer again, and, fortunately, are coming to Kraków once again, this time as the main course - can't wait!

Undir köldum norðurljósum costs 10 USD.

Sólveig Matthildur - Constantly in Love (2019)

Kælan Mikla - Nótt eftir nótt (2018) EN

Check: Ósýnileg

Country: Iceland

Genre: synthpop darkwave

Label: Artoffact Records

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slntsqencs - haar (2021)

The duo slntsqencs consists of the Gdańsk-based producer Arkadiusz Krupiński a.k.a. random_orb and guitarist Petar Petkov. The latter is better known as ate and under this moniker was posted about on this blog back in 2018. Together they have been playing since 2019 and now can show their debut album haar to the audience.

Although it starts with rather harsh sounds of tibor, it quickly gets smoother and calmer. However, there are still moments of sonic anxiety, the best example being abode with its ambient electronica sounding almost like neoclassical composition and the guitar drones that feel dark and dangerous on top of that. This opposition of the pleasantly calm backgrounds and nerve-stimulating coarse guitars is present throughout the release and fits its title as "haar" refers to a weather phenomenon in which the smooth fog freezes over seas. The whole, industrial-flavoured album creates a perfect balance of the two opposition and transfers it onto the listeners.

haar costs 5 EUR.

ate - Secondary Drowning (2018)

Check: abode 

Country: Poland

Genre: guitar soundscape

Label: Amek Collective

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Slow Crush - Hush (2021)

If you count this heavy and slow, multi-layered shoegaze without much of the noise pop/post-punk influences as a separate genre, it's clear that Slow Crush is one of the biggest names here at the moment. The Belgian outfit debuted three years ago with the spectacular Aurora and now it's time for a perfect follow-up with the ethereal bliss on Hush.

You could crack a joke saying that at first there's Slowdive and then there's Slow Crush, but in fact, you wouldn't be very far from the truth. The Belgian band couldn't hide their inspirations taken from the British icons. The atmosphere of their music is very similar, it is very close as far as the pace, the warmth, the vocals are concerned. There's little place for lively tunes here, it is this kind of music to dance in your mind to. The heavy sounds of guitars are so slow that they often sound like a heavy kind of ambient music, if it even makes sense; on the other hand, there are moments of fast-paced ethereal fun (Swoon is the perfect example here), but it's still not a happy-go-lucky noise pop - it's so much more. No wonder that the subtle melodies and heavy music are called "radiating moonlit warmth through a haze of abrasive whirling layered guitars".

The ridiculously airy atmosphere is partly achieved due to the vocals by Isa Holliday - they often sound more like a ASMR-type whispers or lullabies sung in bed. Those rather dark and sad vibes that rule over the whole release, may be the results of the trying times the artists had to come through during the pandemics (that included changing lineup and problems with labels). But they seem to be over with the problems and in 2022, the band is going to have another big tour all over the world, including two gigs in Poland, which I'm so excited for.

Hush costs 9.99 GBP.

Slow Crush - Ease (Deluxe Edition) (2019)

Check: Hush

Country: Belgium

Genre: heavy shoegaze

Label: Church Road Records

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Shy, Low - Snake Behind the Sun (2021)

I remember Shy, Low from my one and only, as for now, visit to the iconic Dunk!Festival, but I felt like they got lost between the bigger names there. Now, with the release of their forth album Snake Behind the Sun, they seem to get to the highest levels of the world's post-rock scene.

They are advertised as super-fluent in the "exquisite craft of stark contrasts and broad dynamics, from delicate crescendos to the grandiose power of the riff" and I can't disagree here. The range of the intensity levels on the album is pretty impressive and so are the melodies and riffs sown into the compositions. Everything feels very guitar-oriented and there's little room for the atmospheric massiveness, but the energy of the guitars easily compensates for that. There's so much of this pure energy here and it is so eager to flow onto the audience, I feel like I'm on a live gig and ready to dance. I love Helioentropy with its impressive finish and The Beacon with the disrupted flow at one point. But there's much more tasty moments hidden throughout the release, next to every second offers something truly unique.

There's so much going on on this recording! Earlier this year, one of their tracks got remixed by Holy Fawn and I thought it was the best music from the Virginia-based band ever, but with the new album I am ready to say that there's a lot of potential in their music. I can't wait for new material and I will go back to the previous albums to assess my assessments with pleasure.

Snake Behind the Sun costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Helioentropy

Country: Virginia, US

Genre: guitar post-rock

Label: Pelagic Records

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Wings of the ISANG - The Borderline Between Hope and Despair (2021)

There is something in the Korean/Japanese heavy music that makes it very recognizable. It's no different for Wings of the ISANG, the Seoul-based quartet who create some very atmospheric and pretty heavy post-rock music. For their debut release they were awarded with the Korea Music Awards for Best Modern Rock Album. Their second album is called The Borderline Between Hope and Despair and can be admired since September.

The album makes a "story about the inner side of 'I(Ego)', who cannot belong anywhere" with all of the introvert themes and contemplation moments there should be. This is achieved, however, mostly with loud and heavy guitars sounds that create the thick and dark atmosphere that is only strengthen by the vocals that can be both super ethereal and emotional at the same time (especially the female vocals provided by Aseul). This makes me think of Crippled Black Phoenix or Blanket - a clearly post-rock outfit but with very prog/rock-like vocals. Wings of the ISANG add to this an unbelievable level of emotions (like in Home), from time to time sounding almost like in classic singing.

I love the way this album seems to go on endlessly. The compositions are long and they take their time to develop from subtle guitar tunes into raging post-rock passages. Especially in the longest tracks like the classically heavy metal-like mesmerizing bits of No Longer Human and the super epic finish in Eternity. Coming back to the Far East heavy music's uniqueness - on this album, you can find some of MONO's massiveness and World's End Girlfriend's darkness, but in truth, the band's work feels very unique on its own.

The Borderline Between Hope and Despair costs 12 USD.

Check: One day, the sky that I stood still and looked at while walking on the crosswalk in front of Dunchon-dong Station

Country: South Korea

Genre: vocal dark post-rock

Label: LOCH Arts & Music

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Trna - Istok (2021)

The self-acclaimed "hurricane full of emotions" from Saint Petersburg, Trna are post-rock band that is ready to crush the audience with their beautiful and heavy sound. This year's Istok is their fourth album and one to establish their presence in the post-rock genre.

The Russians' post-rock feels extremely massive, atmospheric and heavy. Their sound reminds me of the new God Is an Astronaut and Coastlands' releases with a hint of TESA's rapidness. The band have now decided to go even more into the post-rock realm with less of the blackgaze, post-metal traces they tended to use on previous releases (and in the music of Olhava, the side project of half of the band). Sure, there is some of the blackgaze's synth-like smoothness and metal's crazy, unstoppable drums and the vocals introduced in the album's third track Shining. Still, the overall feeling of the compositions situates it closer to the post-rock icons than anything else (especially that said Shining comes also vocal-less as a bonus track at the end of the album).

There's tons of ultra-heavy sounds in almost every second of the album. The opening in Istok, sets the pace very early and the band don't slow down until the very end. Songs such as Echoes of the Past, Burning Bridges, Shattered Dreams or Hearts Turn to Stone fit neatly within the darkest and heaviest post-rock branch, while, quite surprisingly, the whole thing doesn't end with a blast but with a rather moody and melancholic finish in Rebirth. Top class release.

Istok costs 9.99 USD.

Check: Istok

Country: Russia

Genre: heavy post-rock

Label: A Candlelight Records

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