This year is marked by the comebacks of the piano-based modern post-rock bands and now, after Nordic Giants, it's time for the Slovenian Shadow Universe to show their third album. For me, their debuting The Unspeakable World was one of those surprising hits I hadn't seen coming and til this day it remains one of my favourite albums of the genre. Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds feels slightly different but it's not a bad kind of different.
A very big accent is put on the piano bits. The whole tracks are driven by the piano keys without sounding too depressing; instead, the piano makes them vivid and energetic in a different way most post-rock compositions are. Somehow even the inclusion of strings in Don't Look at It and You'll See It doesn't mean it's automatically a melancholia-infused song; it's slower and perhaps more beautiful but the pace is still there and it's quite surprising. Obviously, the moments of the neoclassical beauty are more often then not interrupted by the modern-sounding post-rock music that introduces a huge-scaled grandeur feeling, not so different from what Nordic Giants did this year.
This multitude of various sounds complimented by subtle electronica and trumpets (or trumpet-like samples) in Losing Home and the glitches in Antares Goes Supernova is what makes the album a must-go-to for the fans of less traditional, more modern and eclectic post-rock music.
Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds costs 8.5 EUR (7 GBP).
Check: Don't Look at It and You'll See It
Country: Slovenia
Genre: modern post-rock
Label: Monotreme Records
