The Coral Sea - Golden Planet Sky (2023)

Rey Villalobos' The Coral Sea was one of  the most important bands of my younger years. Firelight was the album that opened my eyes on the dreamy side of indie rock and Villalobos' voice was the one I thought about when thinking about the moodiest of vocals. After a while, the artist decided to make solo music under the moniker of House of Wolves and now The Coral Sea is finally back. But Golden Planet Sky is Villalobos solo once again.

So it's not going to be very surprising to say that music-wise, the new album is closer to House of Wolves than to the old The Coral Sea. Once again, it is an intimate experience with Villalobos warm and dreamy voice and his melancholic music. It's like less depressive Raised by Swans, more acoustic Ruby Haunt and less flashy Cigarettes After Sex. And while it is a solo project now, it doesn't mean the main guy is alone. There's actually a nice variety of instruments with horns (played by Kelly Pratt) or baritone (John Morgan Askew), making this dream pop music sound like a really well-done art rock. 

Golden Planet Sky costs 9 USD.

Check: Love Is No Sacrifice

Country: California, US

Genre: acoustic dream pop

Label: Trees They Move

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Pastry - Cyan Fabrics with Stains on Them (2022)

Indie rock meets noisy inspirations, this is the Polish band of Pastry. Coming from the Tricity region on the Baltic sea, the band showed their debut LP called Cyan Fabrics with Stains on Them towards the end of the last year.

The fast, melodic songs show how well indie rock can coexist with noisy and dreamy elements. The vocals are, for the most part, properly distorted, the guitars noisy and enthusiastic. On this album, the artists changed their sound a bit towards slightly heavier, darker notes and I feel it makes their melodic music slightly unnerving and exciting (so well audible in Mute). It is especially tangible in more experimental tracks, like in Black with the spoken word vocals that turn into mesmerizing chanting. This marks the post-punk inspirations in the overall more noisy music from the Polish outfit.

Cyan Fabrics with Stains on Them costs 3.5 EUR (15 PLN).

Check: Mute

Country: Poland

Genre: noisy indie rock

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A Farewell to Words - AFTW (2022)

This seems to be a good time for post-rock in Latvia. I have recently posted about EYRTH, there is TESA, one of my favourite post-rockers worldwide, and now it's time for Riga-based trio A Farewell to Words. And although they have already appeared on my blog (lon time ago, I already forgot about it to be honest), AFTW is their debut LP.

Although the Latvian artists claim to draw inspirations from both shoegaze, post-punk and metal music, the post-rock they present is clearly mostly influenced by the latter. The guitar-oriented compositions are based on the very metal-like riffs with occasional angry vocals (Patriks Palsāns in Mriya) and those characteristic, blackened vibes. While it's not like the artists don't care about the atmospheric part of their music, it is probably true that they are more focused on the heaviness and melodic intensity. But this stops being true towards the end of the album with more traditionally post-rock Painfully Aware. 

AFTW costs 7.77 EUR.

A Farewell To Words - Matter Of Heart (2018)

Check: Mriya

Country: Latvia

Genre: heavy post-rock

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Driftless - Perfect Blue (2022)

They have already three short albums in their discography, the Minnesota-based trio Driftless make their post-rock/dream pop music for six years now and last December they released their newest album called Perfect Blue.

They don't like longer forms of albums, especially for this kind of music. The new one is only half an hour-long, but it doesn't stop it from being extremely moody and utterly captivating. This is the kind of post-rock with vocals Hammock is known for: it's very often close to ambient's level of peacefulness, but, in time, gets more and more post-rock intensive. And this music is made more atmospheric and definitely more dreamy with the inclusion of the utterly oneiric, whispering vocals that function among the instruments like fog in a fairy-tale forest. On this album, the band chose to make the compositions longer, only three fit here, but it means that they let them develop, slowly but surely, towards very satisfying, although toned-down little crescendos of dreamy, beautiful post-rock.

Perfect Blue costs 6 USD.

Check: Renew

Country: Minnesota, US

Genre: oneiric post-rock

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Miłosz Kędra - For Aeons (2022)

From the quietest label in Poland, Ciche Nagrania, comes a new face on this country's ambient scene. Miłosz Kędra shows us his debut EP For Aeons that is filled with heavy ambient evoking tons of melancholic feelings.

The unique nature of this album comes from the way it is "inspired by the Medieval style of music, enriching it with futuristic visions by combining the sound of organs with electronica", making the church music more approachable to the modern listener. Simply speaking, it is beautiful. The slow waves of deep, modulated organ sounds are overwhelming most of the times and so utterly sad. Especially when combined with string instruments (in Profane) provided by Antonina Car. 

For Aeons costs 4.5 EUR (20 PLN).

Check: Profane

Country: Poland

Genre: organ-based ambient

Label: Ciche Nagrania

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MOLLY - Picturesque (2023)

Although I missed it on this blog, MOLLY's debut album All That Ever Could Have Been was a true highlight of 2019 for me. And as the sophomore Picturesque is at least as good as the first one, it simply had to appear in here.

The Austrian duo's post-rock music formed as indie rock compositions has been compared to variety of other bands, including most notably Sigur Rós. For me, it is close to what The Boxer Rebellion used to make at their beginnings: high-pitched, soft and emotional vocals in melodic compositions for which the backgrounds are pure post-rock sounds. The new album is opened exactly like that: the single track Ballerina is fairly short and radio-worthy, but at the same time shows the heavy post-rock influences, audible from the very first notes. But already the second song is very different: four minutes of more traditional artsy and indie composition, followed by almost 10 minutes-long pure post-rock masterpiece.

The whole album balances between indie art rock and post-rock noisy crescendos. This combination is both tear-jerking and euphoric, lyrical and heavy. In this unorthodox approach to the genres, MOLLY remind me also about their compatriots from Our Ceasing Voices - while the music is slightly different, the overall atmosphere is similar.

Picturesque costs 7 EUR (6 GBP).

Check: The Golden Age

Country: Austria

Genre: post-rock art rock

Label: Sonic Cathedral

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Mindless Paradise - Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz (2022)

Usually when a band combines traditional post-rock music with electronica, I have big expectations and I'm very glad when they are confirmed by the music itself. The Ukrainian outfit Mindless Paradise is a good example here: a band I hadn't heard about before, after a series of EPs, released their debut LP and Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz is definitely a something worth checking out.

No wonder that the band presents very modern, electronica-infused take on the genre as it is led by Fatum Black, an Ukrainian producer and soundtrack composer. But the music here is not overwhelmed by either the guitar nor the electronic side; I feel like it is perfectly balanced and creates a blend that meets expectation of a broad range of fans. It is fast and loud, can be overwhelming with its heavy sounds, especially when guitars take over and create this kind of black blizzard that can be felt on the listener's shoulders.

And it's also not a surprise. The track titles show that the ongoing war had been something that influenced the music here and these vibes: the adrenaline-fueled energy, the heaviness, the darkness, but also hints of hope, definitely mirror what is currently in minds and hearts of people in Ukraine.

Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz costs 6 USD.

Check: The Light Gets Brighter

Country: Ukraine

Genre: electronic post-rock

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Nicole Dollanganger - Married in Mount Airy (2023)

I love what Nicole Bell does as Nicole Dollanganger. The Canadian artist for over a decade combines the violence- and love-centred poetry with ambient pop and this is a fantastic, although surprising at first, combination that works so well also on her seventh album to date, Married in Mount Airy.

Bell's child-like voice (and the overall image as well) heavily contrasts with the adult, often unsettling themes of what she sings about and this is something that makes the spine thrill when listening to her albums. Especially that, very much in the way country and folk music does it, the lyrics tell full-grown stories with many details that help the audience to find themselves within Bell's poetry. Amazing story-telling immersion capabilities. The minimalist music accompanying her vocals is equally disturbing: when the instruments sound like not exactly on tune, the whole message sounds distorted as well. But I especially like it when the vocals are complimented by the organ-like synth sounds, adding to how touching they are.

It's worth adding that the music on the album could also safely be described as dream pop, although the dreaminess here can be disputed, it's more nightmarish if anything. Still, the oneiric attributes are very much tangible and make the immersion even more complete. I feel like it's at its top in Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus, making it automatically my favourite track here.

Married in Mount Airy costs 7 USD.

Check: Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus

Country: Canada

Genre: gothic ambient pop

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Velveteen - Empty Crush (2022)

Velveteen are from London and they have been releasing their music for some time now (Rate Your Music says it's been 10 years, but I'm not sure it's true), but this is, as far as I know, their first LP. And Empty Crush is a perfectly nostalgic piece of noisy compositions that gave me this "I was born in a wrong generation" kind of feeling.

They describe their music as "a sound that's as much a love letter to their inspirations as it is their own" with said inspiration taken from shoegaze, post-punk, dream pop and noise rock. The first track of the album clearly confirms it with the particularly noisy guitars leading the first notes of the release. When they make way to the dispersed vocals, the sound is almost a perfect homage to the shoegaze legends from the 90s, especially My Bloody Valentine (for the guitars) and RIDE (vocals). The nostalgia for those times and the way it inspired the new band is clearly the strongest aspect of the album. Tracks like Entwined and Sunborn perfectly show this and it's barely comprehensible that they were not, in fact, released 30 years ago.

Empty Crush costs 7 USD.

Check: Entwined 

Country: UK

Genre: old-school shoegaze

Label: Shelflife

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Tomoyoshi Date - 438Hz As It Is, As You Are [​あ​る​が​ま​ま​、​あ​な​た​の​ま​ま​に​] (2022)

Although not that long ago Tomoyoshi Date was present on this blog with an album created together with Stijn Huwels, last year's 438Hz As It Is, As You Are [​あ​る​が​ま​ま​、​あ​な​た​の​ま​ま​に​] is only his third solo album since 2008. 

The music here is built upon the beautiful, though not extremely melodic sounds of piano keys. This is more an ambient recording played on a real instrument than your average neoclassical piece. The compositions are filled with delicate noise and subtle fuzziness, but the piano is definitely the main player here. This slow, moody music is a real band-aid on a bruised soul, but it was created with a particularly interesting idea in mind, as the artist describes, it's meant to have "the listener adjust the pitch at the desired speed according to the mood and frequency of [them] at that time". For me, it works at the melancholy level.

438Hz As It Is, As You Are [​あ​る​が​ま​ま​、​あ​な​た​の​ま​ま​に​] costs 6 EUR.

Stijn Hüwels + Tomoyoshi Date - 遠き火、遠き雲’ ​(​A Distant Fire​,​ A Distant Cloud) (2021)

Check: 光 Hikari (45 rpm)

Country: Brazil/Japan

Genre: piano ambient

Label: laaps

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Soft Blue Shimmer - Love Lives in the Body (2022)

Back in November, the Californian band Soft Blue Shimmer released their sophomore album called Love Lives in the Body . The moody dream pop featured there certainly should be considered by any fan of the genre who looks for something new to add to their personal playlists.

This is the kind of music that is filled with melancholia and nostalgia and that forms those feelings in a dreamy and melodic moulds. There is a certain dose of guitar noise in the backgrounds but the music itself is rarely the first thing you notice. It's more about Meredith Ramond's dreamy vocals, this is what mesmerizes the audience. The softness, the gloomy hue and the sad vibes all over those vocals are the perfect fit for the noise pop the band makes. The album is very well-leveled and it's difficult to point to one track that stands out, but I feel like it represents the very essence of the nostalgic noisy music.

Love Lives in the Body costs 10 USD.

Check: Prism of Feeling

Country: California, US

Genre: noise pop

Label: Other People Records

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Seyda Neen - Nocą (2022)

Seyda Neen are a really underrated duo from Bydgoszcz, Poland. Their music combines the catchiness of pop music with moodiness of various alternative genres and five years after their debut release Odwilż ("A Thaw"), they prove it with the sophomore album called Nocą ("By Night").

The band, or an orchestra of electronic delicacies ("orkiestra elektronicznych frykasów"), as the artists call themselves, creates a curious blend of simple but very catchy melodies and synthy, dance-inducing music with dreamy vocals and gloomy themes. As in my favourite among the album palylist, Słońce ("The Sun") that makes a summer hit-like composition with lyrics about depression ("The Sun shine/ the Sun gives joy/ the Sun gives warmth/ to everyone but me"). The pace is not the highest and even when it speeds up, the overall lo-fi vibes make the songs feel chilled and cozy, it's like your local indie pop/rock band put through some highly effective oneiric and slightly dark filters.

Nocą costs 4.5 EUR (20 PLN).

Seyda Neen - Odwilż (2017)

Check: Słońce

Country: Poland

Genre: dreamy indie pop

Label: Prądy

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La ciencia simple - Ritmos en cruz (2022)

The Chilean band that aims at the "exploration in the crossing of rhythmic patterns immersed in atmospheres and narratives of a dramatic nature" are back on my blog. Four years after their previous release they showed an LP that confirms the quality of their psychedelic/post-rock music.

It is slower and more atmospheric than your average psychedelic rock and softer and more complex than your average post-rock. The South American outfit's music is based on a broad range of sounds from ambient-like backgrounds, through piano keys (so beautiful in Sueño azul) to Niebla's unsettling guitars in the track's finish. This is this kind of instrumental music that requires full focus and it is guaranteed to give the listener something interesting, there's simply too much going on in this music, there's too many inspirations the musicians draw from, to leave anyone indifferent to this album.

Ritmos en cruz costs 8 USD.

La ciencia simple - III IV VII (2018)

Check: Niebla

Country: Chile

Genre: psychedelic post-rock

Label: anomalía ediciones

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inamomentimalive - The Sea Remains the Sea (2022)

Tony Olla, the Wisconsin-based artist creates his music under the moniker of inamomentimalive. His heavy, multi-layered ambient certainly brings a lot of nostalgia to the listeners' lives. His new album is called The Sea Remains the Sea.

And just like the title suggests, it is filled with tons of massive sadness. Just like the sea, the music here is beautiful and calming on the surface, but it certainly can be felt that there's unfathomable, unnerving presence of something great underneath. This grandeur of the ambient soundscapes is the first thing that comes to mind, thanks to the heavy drones but also the multitude of tiny, buzzing sounds all over the compositions. This sea sounds very lively indeed.

The Sea Remains the Sea costs 7 USD.

Check: Fully Immersed 

Country: Wisconsin, US

Genre: drony soundscape

Label: Your Silent Facade

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Wang Wen 惘闻 - Painful Clown & Ninja Tiger (2022)

The Chinese icons of post music, Wang Wen, are back with their new album called Painful Clown & Ninja Tiger. For over 20 years, the artists are known for the fact that their music is far from the traditional definition of post-rock, yet still appealing to the genre's fans.

The new album is a hodgepodge of traditional, instrumental post-rock very much in the old God Is an Astronaut style, with vocal-led moody songs. But unlike those from Immanu El or ef, the vocals here are not oneiric ghosts, they are more like traditional, slightly old-school music-inspired. These old-school vibes are noticeable throughout the whole album, in the vocals, in the sound of saxophone, in melodies that feel like taken from the 80s. It has its charm, that's for sure. It may feel a bit disorientating genre-wise and it's probably not a thing for everyone, but the slower pace of the compositions and the artsy take on the instrumental music really are entertaining.

Painful Clown & Ninja Tiger costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: There's a Wallmart Underneath the Olympic Square 

Country: China

Genre: old-school post-rock

Label: Pelagic Records

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EYRTH - Meridian (2022)

The Latvian EYRTH creates their "uranium wreckage in audio" or post-rock/post-metal massive sounds for five years now and this is their second LP.  And so Meridian brings tons of overwhelming atmosphere and it is extremely satisfying.

Although the intro gives dark ambient vibes, the album quickly speeds up to its limits. The guitars are extremely heavy, doom metal-like but filtered by the post-metal atmosphere and noisy vibes. This combination brings fantastic results: it is dark, it is overwhelming, it is immersive. The music here fluctuates: sometimes it is closer to instrumental ambient, but usually it comes up to the heavens of loudness. The ambient passages slowly developing into deafening crescendos is how the album's longest track, Elliptic, is structured and everybody has to agree that it's something spectacular. But the whole album sounds like a whole that had been well thought through by the band: the calmer parts prepare the audience for louder hits, the louder hit deliver satisfying walls of noise and if it wasn't for the Spotify's playlist, I wouldn't know where one track begins and another ends.

Meridian costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Fallout

Country: Latvia

Genre: atmospheric post-metal

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Twin Oaks - Strangers (2022)

Today, a very similar post to the yesterday's one: a band I really like (this time it's dream pop from US though) with their third album and some line-up changes (this time the duo became a collective of three). Strangers is such a fantastic album, a great continuation of Twin Oaks' discography.

The album's opening sound already surprised the hell out of me: the aggressive, almost dub-step like wall of noise welcomes the audience to the new release. This was only a jump scare as the whole thing sounds more like the previous ones: the ridiculously moody dream pop ballads fueled by the emotional vocals by Lauren Brown. However, it seems that their music became more complex, there is more going on in the backgrounds with some interesting electronica bits, sampling and generally, very modern approach leads to the fantastic level of immersion the listener experiences. The flow of the songs is immersive, it's difficult not to get carried away.

But those are still mostly ballads. Somehow it works together very well (so well audible in New York). So the whole album ranges from dreamy ballads, through some alternative r'n'b-like vibes, up to full blown electronica - and it all is kept together by Twin Oaks signature, very moody style. 

Strangers costs 8 USD.

Check: Reflex

Country: California, US

Genre: electronica dream pop

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Life on Venus - Homewards (2022)

One of my favourite European shoegaze artists are back, as it seems, with a smaller line-up. The now trio have released their third album, Homewards, recently and their dense shoegaze is as good as always.

The first longer track, You Will Be There shows pretty early how catchy and melodic the music here is. It's not always the case for shoegaze songs to be that easy to pick up by the listeners, but this is certainly the case here. The use of pauses, sweet melodies and heavy, immersive guitar noise is top-notch here, up to the impressive, abrupt finish. The songs are short (the whole album is only half an hour long) but it makes them even catchier. The band doesn't spend much time on introductions or noisy passages, this album is about shoegaze bangers that should be known to the genre's fans all over the world.

Another thing that is the most impressive is the quality of the thick, overwhelming guitar sounds all over the album. While usually devoted to make the haze in the backgrounds, sometimes, like in Speak to the Moon, their aggressive heaviness is so noticeable on your shoulders. This is what shogeaze should feel like.

Homewards costs 9.99 EUR.

Check: You Will Be There

Genre: melodic shoegaze

Label: Stereopark Music

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