Aortes - Carrion (2025)

It took 6 years and one change of name for the Lithuanian post-metal outfit (now called) Aortes come back on my blog. And there is a good reason for that too as their new album (second under this moniker and 5th in general) is a masterful dose of heavy atmosphere and post-hardcore anger.

The artists themselves think highly about the release, calling it a "brand new and more mature sounding album" and I have to agree. It is no simple post-metal/hardcore music here, it's more nuanced, deeper and more attractive face of the genre while still retaining the clue of this kind of sound: energy and expression. However, parts such as Carrion with the spoken word vocals or the addition of the saxophone sound in the same song, or an entire ambient intermission in Black Mold make me appreciate the release even more. Not to mention that they, simply speaking, turn up the atmosphere of this dense music.

I can't stress enough how good the atmosphere is on this album. It's unsettling like an alarm siren, it's heavy like a tank, it's slow and steady and suddenly very fast. I love it, especially on When We Cease, a track that left me lying on the ground overwhelmed by its weight. Fantastic stuff.

Carrion costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: When We Cease

Country: Lithuania

Genre: noisy post-metal

Autism - Have You Found Peace? (2019)

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:instagram:

:youtube:

:spotify:

Local Blood - Dystopian Disco (2022)

The Lithuanian Local Blood debuted (also on this blog) with their EP called A Lure of Sights with the brilliant Total Guidance as the final track. But it was already over 5 (!) years ago. Finally this year, the post-punk scholars showed their proper debut album and Dystopian Disco is everything you may have wanted it to be.

I can sense so much influences here: there's something from Modest Mouse and IDLES in the vocals, tons of post-punk references from across the genre's scene and also something from the electronic compatriots from Solo Ansamblis in the way the compositions flow. As the post-punk canons state, the lyrics touch all the important stuff from the social point of view from the religious deceitfulness in My Blood to the state of being controlled (in, well, Control) and modern politics (Crawling Borders 2). But all this is made very approachable (which is important in those dark times now) with the melodic and catchy tunes and the way the band emits pure energy towards the audience. Especially when it's strengthen by the synthesizer madness like it is the case in Pressure. This modern and attractive approach to post-punk that hides the gloomy messages in the energetic blast makes the Lithuanians an important debut and a must-see for concert goers.

 

Dystopian Disco costs 9 EUR.

Local Blood - A Lure of Sights (2016)

Check: My Blood

Country: Lithuania

Genre: energetic post-punk

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:instagram:

:soundcloud:

:youtube:

:spotify:

Ambulance on Fire - Ambulance on Fire (2021)

Ambulance on Fire is a Lithuanian duo consisting of Jūra Elena Šedytė and Mėta Gabrielė Pelegrimaitė, musicians of jazzy and theatrical music backgrounds. They combine these artsy worlds with modern electronic music and it sounds extremely interesting on their debut EP simply called Ambulance on Fire.

The title of the first track says a lot about their work. The traditional music (represented here by a very folk-sounding flute) meets the modern music and world. The artists draw inspiration from a various music genres from IDM to synthpop and 90's electronica and those come to the stage with the heavy-bass-reach I Will Never in which the, again very much folk-inspired, vocals go together with coarse synths and soul-filling basses. This, often improvised and lyrics-lightweight, music talks about "anxiety, anger, or fear that can be felt even deeper in a specific musical atmosphere" and I would add the social aspects of those, perhaps it's because of the very vivid name of the project.

As well as the last track entitled in the same way. One that is filled with uncomfortable electronica, ethereal synths in the backgrounds and those unique, repetitive and mesmerizing chanting that closes the very promising debut.

Ambulance on Fire costs 4 EUR.

Check: Ambulance on Fire

Country: Lithuania

Genre: art synthpop

Label: Future Sound Scientists

:bandcamp:

:facebook:
:official:

:instagram:

:youtube:

:spotify:

Giriu Dvasios - Aidai (2019) EN

To celebrate the 10th birthday of the project, the Lithuanian producer Girių Davasios comes back to his undoubtedly best album, Ratu. This is where he did what made me fall in love in his music - combined the modern electronics with Lithuanian folk music. Just as he does on his new album, Aidai, that sounds like a direct continuation of Ratu.

It's clear from the very first sounds. Seemingly on a loop samples in the Lithuanian style of "sutartinės", folk songs that are meant to drive into trance, here do so with even higher efficiency. As before, the artist "borrowed" them from the folk band Trys Keturiose, but also thanks to cooperation with the already quite known Obeliją. A certain new thing is on the other hand "normal" vocal in Neskubek, which honestly doesn't sound that great comparing.

But what worked four years ago, works now as well. So the track such as Bitela, Tuto valijo, or Linelius, but first of all those recorded with Obelija. Everything could be both danced to or contemplated. 

Aidai costs 6 EUR.

Girių Dvasios - Ratu (2015) EN

Check: Vai kaip as buvau

Country: Lithuania

Genre: folk dub

:bandcamp:

:facebook:
:soundcloud:

:spotify:

Autism - Have You Found Peace? (2019) EN

Autism, at least this Autism, are from Lithuania, and their heavy post-rock a.k.a. post-metal a.k.a. post-hardcore play from seven years (when they released their first EP). This year, they make a statement about the level of their music with Have You Found Peace? where they show how to express a very peculiar story with the usage of music. 

The Lithuanians' album is well-thought through down to the smallest details. It makes a story of a teenager called Nolan who, after an accident, deals with guilt and psychological problems. The boy writes some unsettling letters only to disappear in the end. The album, as the band state, is an "epitome of the band’s use of cinematic storytelling, and is somewhat of a musical Gesamtkunstwerk", a story told mostly with crushingly melancholic and extremely disquieting guitars.

But only with them. An important person of the album is Krzysztof Traczyk, a member of the Warsaw-based band ROSK. Here, he is responsible not only for his expressive vocals, but also for fantastically good at atmosphere creation fragments of spoken storytelling (for example in the mind infecting Tremorous Luminance). And it's not the end of the long list of guests, there's also another musician of ROSK - Mateusz Szymański and artists playing on saxophone and cello that enrich the already complex post-metal passages in Haunting Recollections.

Have You Found Peace? costs 7 EUR.

Check: Haunting Recollections 

Country: Lithuania

Genre: epic post-hardcore

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:spotify:

Sakebi - Initial Dusk (2018) EN

A solo project by Simona Navašinskienė who appears on the Lithuanian music stage in such projects as Popietės Mergiotė or Seagull Overseas. This time, she released an album as Sakebi meaning music that you may try to label as shoegazing trip-hop. Initial Dusk is worth looking into.

The album is full of ballads written for airy electronics and keys. Synth backgrounds and the electronic music go well together with the dreamy ambiance and create some brilliant compositions, such as II. But most of the time, it is just an accompaniment for the Lithuanian's vocals telling some tear-jerking stories. In other context, less airy and awe-inspiring, they'd be mundane here, they fit like nothing else.

There are also clear inspirations drawn from folk music (even the first sounds of the album in Farewell give this impression) and Navašinskienė's voice colour reminding me of some female-vocal Nightwish-ish metal projects. To me, this is Sakebi's weakest part but it's only a matter of taste.

Initial Dusk costs 5 EUR.

Check: Evening With You

Country: Lithuania

Genre: ethereal trip-hop

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

Noyus - Mucha (2017) EN

Noyus is another artist this week, who comes back to the blog. Based in Lithuania, the artist who at the beginning of the year released an atmospheric album with Ükku, this time creates his very own music. And it doesn't make it any less atmospheric either.

Quite opposite actually, he takes his dark electronics to another level. His compositions makes something like an electronic cold wave. Apart from the darkness-emitting bass, here as thick beats, and touching vocal filling the whole space, there is nothing much. This minimalism creates an uncanny atmosphere and makes every additional effect extremely meaningful and noticeable. Like the field recordings in "Good" or barely audible backgrounds in "SiRENS".

Noyus is no stranger to the vibes of danger and mystery either. And it is well depicted in my favourite "Dark Woods". And if anybody has been to Lithuania, they know that those dark, infinite woods there are something to be scared of.

"Mucha" costs 6 EUR.

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:youtube:

:spotify:

Noyus, Ükku - Warzone EP (2017) EN

Not so long ago we finally got it! The whole world was waiting for the new album by The xx. But meanwhile there appeared our local version of the Scotsmen and it came from Lithuania as the union of two artists - Noyus, the guy, and Ükku, the girl. 

I can't shake off the feeling that "Warzone" is like the mixture of the Romy Madley Croft - Oliver Sim duet with the Polish Kasia - Łukasz whose band Coals is one of the hottest things in our scene. The Lithuanian have perhaps even more in common with the Poles - Ükku's vocal and unsettling music in the background with pulsating drums and unkempt backing vocals. And everything has some of this Lithuanian magic that makes it sound as if it wasn't recorded in Vilnius but somewhere under the stars far away from the city. Perhaps it was.

The duo works  wonderfully - there's perhaps not much of the dialogue-like style of The xx because Noyus and Ükku usually sing simultaneously and complement each other. And it's very electronic and catchy and touching. As the album progresses they really sound like Lithuanian Coals. But it's good. It's very good.

"Warzone"  costs 5 EUR.

:bandcamp:

:facebook (Ukku):

:facebook (Noyus):

Local Blood - A Lure Of Sights (2016) EN

Post-punk temper, coldwave backgrounds and the bass line put in the foreground with poignant post-rock moments. Local Blood is a Lithuanian quartet based in Vilnius, that listened to The Horrors a lot and decided to record something between "Strange House" and "Skying.

Everything begins with the story of a night when a forest grew - a composition of cold synthesizer and hot guitars. After which it's only getting better as Šarūnas Vyštartas' vocal adds to the mixture (I wouldn't be very surprised if his name was Badwanas - if I exaggerate with the comparisons it's only because I have only respect for The Horrors). The whole thing sounds both disturbing and so catchy, no wonder, the lyrics deal with hardly pleasant experiences. "I kneel alone / My thoughts and me / Beneath the mask / That others see" ("Crawling Borders") or "I dig in my past / I lose the present / A commotion is a new friend of mine" ("Past Perfect Continous").

The strongest impression is left by last track whose repeated lyrics make it a sort of anthem for... For what exactly? Is it about a toxic relationship in which one side feels good being controlled? Or perhaps there's something more? After some more listening, which I'm planning anyway, I may find it out.

"A Lure Of Sights" was recorded in Eleventy-One, it costs 4 EUR.

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:soundcloud:

Girių Dvasios - Ratu (2015) EN

Getting back to the small stage hidden in a forest of Mėnuo Juodaragis, the Lithuanian Music festival. This time, the dark night is torn apart by the electronic music of Girių Dvasios. "Electronic" is kind of a broad term - the artist's music combines elements of ambient and dub with Lithuanian folk. Greasy backgrounds and pulsating beats match surprisingly well with looped ethno vocals. The choires, namely Trys Keturiose and Kūlgrinda, sing "sutartinės", the very essence of the Baltic folk - repetetive and trance providing chanting.

Girių Dvasios literally means "spirits of the forest" and it actually fully describes the DJ's work. If witch doctors were to dance around bon fires today getting high with smoke and rhythmical music, they'd do it to music of the Lithuanian artist. Above you there are treetops swinging, around you there are your brothers and sisters swaying with burning eyes and your feet just can't wait and have to dance. What are you going to do?

"Ratu" and its trance costs 6 EUR.

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:soundcloud: