All Is Violent - Monolith of Becoming (2025)

Talking about the most obvious inspirations used in band's names, the Australian post-rockers of All Is Violent are certainly up there, among the top (maybe after Sugar for the Pill). But interestingly enough, the omitted part of the phrase, "...All Is Bright" is omitted on purpose as their instrumental music is all but bright.

Ad if you know me already, I don't look for the bright in post-rock. So this year I didn't care about you, infinite, but I do care about this unassuming EP from the other end of the world. As expected, nothing here is bright, but everything is violent. The pace and the hit produced by the guitar compositions take the audience away like rapids on a mountain stream from the very first notes. The sounds feel dark and not very approachable, ready to hurt you more than heel you. But sometimes you need this as well. There is a brief moment of peace in Where Knowing Else, but it's short and you know that it will be proceeded by another storm of sounds.

Unfortunately, it's so fast and so short that it's gone way too early. But if you write a thing like this, it's generally a good thing I think?

Monolith of Becoming costs 6 EUR (10 AUD).

Check: Where Knowing Else

Country: Australia

Genre: rapid post-rock

ALL IS VIOLENT - Cartographers Of Human Purpose (2019)

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Barrens - Corpse Lights (2025)

Their 2020 debut was a shock to me. How can you include such fantastic post-rock music on your first ever album? No wonder I recognize the Swedes as one of my biggest discoveries within the genre in recent years. Now it's time for a difficult step: proving your value on the second album. And, surprise, surprise, Barrens took the step with extreme grace.

The release starts strong with my two favourites: The Derelict and Sorrowed. Those tracks have everything: the engaging but not cringey melodies, the flow, the heaviness to the sound. These are absolute hits if post-rock music can generates hits at all. These must be the pinnacles of the live gigs (I don't know yet, but hopefully I'll find out if that's true soon). They are the parts of the album that will be remembered. After that duo, the Swedes step on the brake pedals and try to enchant the audience with some ambient atmosphere developing into slower grandeur-filled pieces, but, I have to say, I like them best when they are fast and furious.

The album is a well-balanced one. The way the band combines the melodic fragments with darker and heavier ones makes me think that any post-rock fan will surely like this album, but perhaps for different things. I like the darker and heavier, but also faster parts and can honestly say that it's a real continuation of the fantastic debut.

Corpse Lights costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Sorrowed

Country: Sweden

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

Label: Pelagic

Barrens - Penumbra (2020)

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aswekeepsearching - kyun? (2025)

It's probably clear by now that those three guys from Pune are my favourite Indian artists. Their post-rock music is as inclusive when it comes to original sounds as it is atmospheric. It's all proven true once again on the band's sixth album entitled kyun? 

Reaching their 10th anniversary as a group, the artists dedicated the album to... dedication. Or more precisely, "to the strength it takes to keep going". As always, the dense atmosphere of their music is achieved by the use of violins the sounds of which are not only complimentary, it's very often the main focus of the audience and it's a great thing. I just love post-rock with strings, no doubts about it. And here, violins play both of the spectrum, the energetic, melody-bringers and the calmer, atmosphere-makers. Obviously, it makes the music feel cinematic too, but it's not the main feeling I get when listening to kyun? 

The guitars are also joined by a flute (I think?) and a multitude of samples, ambient passages, other effects. That's what I call an eclectic and inclusive guitar music! And Uddipan Sarmah's vocals are another thing. It just fits the style of the band and I'm always open for more vocals in post-rock compositions. After all, the artists are set to create a "must-experience for anyone who appreciates the power of music to evoke emotions and transport you to a different world" and so any means are acceptable to do that.

kyun? costs 12 USD.

Check: happiness > god

Country: India

Genre: violins-led post-rock

aswekeepsearching - Rooh (2019)

aswekeepsearching - Zia (2017)

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All You've Seen - Mavu (2024)

The post-rock landscape of Switzerland doesn't stop surprise me, when I think that in such a smal country, there can't be more excellent bands of the genre, I find one more. So after Glaston, Hubris. and all the other, it's time to present All You've Seen on this blog, especially that at the end of last year, they released a fantastic album filled with slow but poignant guitar music.

And also because this is ot a new band. Their releases track back as far as 2009 and still, our musical paths hadn't crossed before. And it's very suspicious as I find that they play this kind of post-rock that is the closest to my heart: slow and dark, moody and dangerous. One would say glacial, but that would be an overused adjective for a Swiss band I'm sure. "A sense of awe overtakes me when I behold this world that can only be revealed by my innermost self", this is only an excerpt from a longer description of the album on the band's Bandcamp page and I have to say that it certainly sounds like something Alcest would write about their music.

And it's pretty much spot on. The poetic way of describing the music is perfect since the music is poetic itself. It is oneiric to the point where you can't tell the dream from reality around you. Especially when it becomes overwhelming, filled with this kind of sonic grandeur that fill you with awe with little room for any other thoughts (as it is the case in procession).

Mavu costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: procession

Country: Switzerland

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

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where mermaids drown - Reminisce (2023)

It's been already two years since the French band where mermaids drown showed their first short album called And the Raging Winds Do Blow and what a debut it was! Now it's time for the artists, after a great gig at last year's dunk!festival, to prove that they belong to the most exciting new post-rock outfit in Europe.

On their new album, the band explores the way the relationships between humans are built and how they die, making room for creating life-long memories. And their approached the theme with a set of already-proved tools they are really good at: creating very moody, very atmospheric post-rock that is ready to serve slower, moodier peaces that lead to loud and massive fragments of guitar bliss. I like dividing post-rock into two categories: the more guitar-riff-melodies kind and the atmosphere-is-crucial one; where mermaids drown seem to be a perfect bridge over the two. One can't deny the thickness of the music layers here, but there's a good deal of guitar melodies (those faster and slower as well) - a really well-balanced album.

Reminisce costs 10 EUR.

Where Mermaids Drown - And the Raging Winds Do Blow (2021)

Check: Rio Plata

Country: France

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

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DDENT - Ex Auditu (2023)

Three years after their last full-length album, the French post-rockers Louis Lambert of DDENT is back. This time, it's only a short EP, but it's always a treat to listen to their well-written instrumental music.

The EP called Ex Auditu, according to its Spotify title at least, may only be the first part of some longer whole and it's something to keep in mind. In those three tracks, Lambert included a whole lot of dense and heavy post-rock atmosphere that is mainly created by the loud, but not too loud, guitar sounds. It pairs well with the overall slow pace that makes the whole thing feel more monumental and overwhelming. And this atmosphere leads the compositions from softer, calmer fragments towards very heavy ones, including the very metal-like last seconds of Vale. I can't wait for more of this music, potentially Ex Auditu part 2?

Ex Auditu costs 0.50 EUR.

 

DDENT - Couvre-sang (2020)

DDENT - TORO (2018)

Check: Vale

Country: France

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

Label: Chien Noir Production

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Silent Whale Becomes A° Dream - North (2023)

One of my favourite lesser known post-rock acts is back! Silent Whale Becomes A° Dream Six years after their fantastic album Requiem, it's finally time for continuation in a form of a false EP called North.

I say it's false because, although it's only two tracks, together they make up over half an hour of the most atmospheric kind of post-rock. It is the kind of guitar music that creates soundscapes rather than compositions, it's post-rock that is all about the overwhelming, immersive atmosphere created by guitar and string instruments. And since the songs here are so long, it's no surprise that the French know how to slowly but surely develop their music from instrumental ambient up to the post-rock's specialty: beautiful crescendos. And the title of this EP definitely is not a coincidence: this music feels like the North itself: impressive to the point of fear and beautiful to the point of tears.

North costs 9 EUR.

Silent Whale Becomes A° Dream - Requiem (2017)

Check: North

Country: France

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

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Florist - Kosket (2022)

I must say, although they have already four albums in their discography, I had never heard of Florist, the band from Finland, before. But it is time to make up for this as their new album called Kosket certainly delivers some brilliant post-rock pieces for the broader audience.

I have a feeling that the Finns draw tons of fun from being in the band. You can hear this kind of artsy enthusiasm in their music with many elements fitting each other somehow chaotically, but creating a coherent, lively whole. There's something from jazzy improvisation here, something from noise rock madness, something from the skillful art rock. I like how it all comes together in 4040, a track that can be especially loud in places, but also very subtle somewhere else. However, the album's longest track Miksi kosket humisevat, kun lähestymme says that the band is fluent in creating more traditional, highly atmospheric kind of post-rock and they are really good at it as well.

Kosket costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: 4040

Country: Finland

Genre: art post-rock

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Ef - We salute you, you and you! (2022)

The fifth album in the Swedish band's discography came after a long, almost a decade-long hiatus. But it was worth waiting for as We salute you, you and you! brings what best in the Nordic way of approaching post-rock music.

In their music the lively guitars and beautiful strings coexist with the Immanu El-like atmospheric vocals. The single's Moments of Momentum is the perfect example of this brilliant way of building compositions, the best way to end up with an instant post-rock hit in my opinion. There's a healthy dose of the music mystery and atmosphere without being too bland. And while the opening track is mostly focused on the mood, the Swedish prove that it's also possible to use guitars and string in more energetic, louder way.

I can't say if what strikes in their music the most is the airiness or the energy. Even the most ethereal tracks like Hymn of... can very quickly transform into almost post-hardcore passage of gloomy aggression (which is a nod to the artists' past in hardcore music). The whole album is a bag filled with various moods with an ambient Leuven added for a good measure, and this is what makes it a spectacular comeback. It is such a bliss that, also thanks to the uneventful life in the times of the pandemics, the band decided to come back together.

We salute you, you and you! costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Moments of Momentum

Country: Sweden

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

Label: Pelagic Records

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Todaynovember - Spirit (2022)

Aleksandr Ivanov from Kyiv makes his music alone as Todaynovember. And it's one of the reasons why it is so impressive as it's one person creating the most atmospheric and epic kind of post-rock music. Spirit is a perfect example of how inspiring and uplifting this music can be.

This post-rock "with synthesizers and ambient sound and instruments" surely feels like taken from some intense movie scenes. No wonder that Ivanov calls himself both a musician and a composer. There is a high level of bombastic music here that is conveyed with orchestral-sounding strings and drums that accompany more traditional guitars and electronica sounds. The album surely feels as if it was created in the most monumental cathedral building. This music has this particular effect on the audience: while listening to this album you really want to go out and do things, you get the feeling that everything is possible and a huge amount of hope. Perhaps this is what we really need right now.

Spirit costs 7 USD.

Check: Spirit 

Country: Ukraine

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

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Ben Haskins - Dinner Party (2022)

I thoroughly enjoyed Ben Haskins' 2021 album Oh Believers, Run! and it seems that the Canadian artist is a real machine to make good post-rock releases, especially that he shows them very often: Dinner Party is already the second one this year. And it may as well be the best one yet.

Although this is a solo post-rock enterprise, the way Haskins generate the attention-grabbing atmosphere is one of the kind. His music is not very loud and noisy but it seduces the audience with the flow and easy-listening synth backgrounds making it sort of a post-rock trip-hop combination. This makes the album run like a mountain spring, even if it's not the fastest music either. The album is structured like the title's party - it starts with a promising aperitif goes through the main course and everything a (Victorian?) fancy dinner should involve. And what it really shouldn't. The most important thing is though that no guest will leave it unsatisfied, that's for sure.

Dinner Party costs 5.5 EUR (7 CAD).

Ben Haskins - Oh Believers, Run! (2021)

Check: The Main Course

Country: Canada

Genre: synthy post-rock

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Hiroe - Wrought (2022)

One of the most impressive post-rock debuts of the last time. The Pennsylvania-based post-rockers of Hiroe released a short album called Wrought which is filled with the most monumental noise a guitar-focused collective could produce.

The album is yet another music work that is strongly affected by the times of the pandemics. The Americans decided to construct those uplifting and hopeful monumental compositions as an "ode to the resilience and power of the human individual, carrying over feelings of anger, anxiety, and loss" with a strong focus on overcoming those and getting on the other side where hope reigns. This is the kind of music that is centered around three guitars and the impressive wall of sound they are able to generate. And although in some places it feels like a hit in your jaw, overall they provide the very positive feelings: the energy boosts, the optimist hope, the massive awe. 

The grandeur of the sound and the way the compositions are skillfully structured make it clear that Hiroe is bound to be the next big thing on the atmospheric instrumental music scene alongside, among others, their compatriots from Coastlands - but unlike Coastlads' monumental gloom, Hiroe offers some of the much-needed consolation.

Wrought costs whatever you want to pay.

Check:  Doom Moon

Country: Pennsylvania, US

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

Label: Pelagic Records

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瀚海瀾汐 - 趣稚錄 | 遺妄 (2022)

If Instagram is to be trusted, 瀚海瀾汐 is a solo project by Junny Chung, a musician from the Guangdong region in China. The artist released two short EPs this year and I'll be looking at the first one of the lot, called 趣稚錄 | 遺妄.

Both EPs are said to be parts of a four-piece whole entitled 遺妄 ("The Delusion"). 趣稚錄 | 遺妄 (that apparently translates to "Funny and Childish Records") consists of four compositions that show some emotional and atmospheric post-rock music with delicate and very sad vocals. The music is based on the balance between synth's beauty and guitars' ruthless grandeur, in many places achieving those extremely bombastic but very satisfying levels of music emotions that can easily make the listener sob. Especially with the addition of the artsy, theatre-like vocals, so important in the short ballad 扯纸鹞. However, the mountain tops-reaching, uplifting and otherworldly beautiful post-rock sounds are what really defines this album.

趣稚錄 | 遺妄 costs 5 USD.

Check: 再见 阿尔兹海默先生

Country: China

Genre: ethereal post-rock

Label: Weary Bird Records

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Sagor Som Leder Mot Slutet - III (2022)

A week after this year's edition of Dunk!Festival, I can safely say that while I witnessed tons of fantastic live gigs there run by artists I know and love, the one that turned out to be my biggest discovery certainly is the Swedish band of Sagor Som Leder Mot Slutet. The festival was the first occasion to listen to their new material, coincidentally released just before the event.

The album, simply titled III, is a perfect example of the approach to post-rock I value the most: the accents are put towards making atmospheric and dark-sounding music with a lot of grandeur and heaviness. This kind of instrumental music successfully adopted by God Is an Astroanut in recent years, and also played by bands such as TESA, Barrens or Year of No Light, is unbelievably impressive, especially live when the audience can experience the dark passion flowing from the artists together with the torrents of sweat. The heights of this music are made of ecstatic passages that bring on all the monumental feelings with the unlimited flow of the blissful guitar noise.

As the band call their own modus operandi, it's all about "mixing darker and heavier themes with fragility" and so there's a certain amount of minutes on III devoted to the quieter, subtly guitar build ups that always end up with heavy crescendos eventually. If this is not the peak of post-rock genre, I don't know what will be.

III costs  10 EUR (100 SEK).

Check: Astra

Country: Sweden

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

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U137 - Imagination (2022)

Almost a decade after the huge success that turned out to be the project's debut album Dreamer on the Run, the Swedish U137 comes back with the third album in discography. Imagination contains tons of cinematic post-rock music with a great taste for overwhelming grandeur moments.

With the help of new instruments (including church organs for instance), Oscar Gullbrandsen, who is now the sole member of the outfit, created the "biggest sounding album to date" and it's no joke. There's so much grandeur on this release that it could fill one or two more with ease. Deep Elm Records that released the album, state that it aims at "generating a feeling of pure euphoria in the listener" and this is the emotion that clearly comes first to mind while listening to this music. Also, it can't be a coincidence that the label is known for working with Christoffer Franzen (aka Lights & Motion) as the flavour of their music is similar: luminous and inspired, a bit bombastic and very much filled with hope (one of tracks is literally called Have Hope too). And also extremely cinematic: if there's music that clearly deserves to be tagged as cinematic, it's this one, no doubts.

Imagination costs 8 USD.

Check: Run Towards the Sun

Country: Sweden

Genre: cinematic post-rock

Label: Deep Elm Records

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A Canyon in the Sea - Lost Landscapes (2022)

Lost Landscapes makes a debut album not only for A Canyon in the Sea but also for the label Polawa Records. However, the Austrian artist made sure to create work that one would not associate with the word "debuting" - it's fantastic both quality- and idea-wise and should be recommended to all the fans of post-rock music.

The compositions here have an interesting trip-hop-like electronica flavour to the backgrounds while still being an absolute bliss of guitar-heavy noise (which in the final track transforms into glitchy kind of neoclassical piano backgrounds and I'm here for it!). This slow and unorthodox way of developing the compositions is actually outstanding; it's not so surprising then that the longest track such as Glass seem to have this unstoppable but never-hasty might like an incoming storm or a moving glacier.  But this is also present in the shorter ones and this is something that rarely happens. It's heavy and loud but is also more focused on generating this eery atmosphere than crushing the audience with energy. 

What should be also pointed out, this is a solo project but while many solo projects like this sound very much like a lonely guy in a bedroom with a guitar, A Canyon in the Sea managed to create a blizzard of sound that could as well be a work of a full-sized band and I appreciate it a lot.

Lost Landscapes costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: We've Met Before Haven't We

Country: Austria

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

Label: Polawa Records

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Nordic Giants - Symbiosis (2022)

The third album from the British dark-folk-inspired electronic post-rock duo Nordic Giants is here and, as always, Symbiosis is a must-go-to for anyone who subscribes to the atmospheric post-rock music, even if it's delivered by very modern means.

The Rôka & Löki duo make a real experience when seen live. The attention to the band's image with the audiovisuals, costumes and the show in general, is beyond spectacular. I remember them from their Kraków gig back in 2017 and the memory is very vivid, no wonder that they advertise this aspect of their works even before mentioning their own music by saying that this "visceral experience that goes beyond the normal descriptors". This image is backed up by the music itself - clearly very fresh and modern take on post-rock music, but, at the same time, extremely atmospheric and massive. They create their music based on the prominent role of keyboard and synth beauty that is turned into loud post-rock by electronic noise and drums' tenacity. I love this balance between the traditional and the modern, the catchy and the atmospheric which is, again, especially well-tangible during the live shows.

This multidimensional approach to music is only strengthen by the inclusion of guest artists with Freyja (who cooperates with the duo frequently; here, in my favourite track on the album: Spheres), Welsh Chae Antony Winter and indie folk singer/songwriter Alex Hedley as vocalists as well as the addition of strings that always bring some fantastic atmospheric value. While the album clearly is quite diverse, it creates one very coherent, Nordic-inspired spectacle.

Symbiosis costs 7.5 EUR (5.99 GBP).

Check: Spheres

Country: UK

Genre: synth post-rock

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Lucida Dark - Of Death, of Love (2022)

Lucida Dark are from Nebraska and, as the project's name suggests, create some particularly dark take on post-rock music. Their instrumental music sparks awe with the atmosphere and grandeur they are able to evoke in the audience. We can admire it now on their debut album called Of Death, of Love.

The band aims at "enthralling their audience with somber atmospheres which climax into vast walls of sound" in order to express the message that includes the truth about the "temporal nature of love and life" and the "inevitability of loss and death". As the album's title suggests, the biggest questions are the theme here. And what can be better to answer them (or more likely to meditate on them as how one could answer anything like this?) than with massive and bombastic post-rock sounds? However, the artists don't shy away from devoting long chunks of the album to instrumental ambient passages that sometimes turn into melancholic static drone. But the main thing are the dark sounds of guitars that generate mesmerizing mood no matter if they are currently focused on slower, cozier parts (the first part of On That Dark Immortal Shore...) or on creating a destructive wall of noise. Especially that the two are very often found in one composition.

But it has to be uttered: the heaviest, the loudest crescendos on the album are extremely satisfying. The crushing waves of guitars in ...We Shall Meet and Part No More is a perfect example here. And the weight of the whole album is something that unbelievably attracts me towards it. And yes, there's also this outstanding cover art that is also very much on the topic of mind-blowing existential questions.

Of Death, of Love costs 7 USD.

Check: ...We Shall Meet and Part No More 

Country: Nebraska, US

Genre: dark post-rock

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Cecilia::eyes - Sore Memories Always End (2021)

For Cecilia::eyes, Sore Memories Always End is their fourth album already. But somehow I have never really gotten to know them, perhaps because the last album was released in 2014. Now, seven (!) years passed and their new dose of ridiculously ethereal post-rock came to make this winter more mysterious and beautiful.

I can't help but compare the Belgians' music to what we know and love Immanu El for. It's the same vibe of slower but carefully developing, epic but intimate, and massive but cozy post-rock. It gives the feeling of not hurrying anywhere, much rather slowly progressing from one audio wonder to another. The guitars build up slow but steady, making the walls of noise overwhelming and crushingly beautiful, but it never feels like it's meant to crush the audience - quite the opposite, the melancholic sounds have rather an uplifting influence on you. Especially when the vocals hit - again, coming back to Immanu El, their pitch is completely different but they convey the same exceptionally ethereal and very sad expression.

The whole atmospheric melancholia type of mood is present from the very beginning of the album to its very end. But it's best tangible in the longest tracks that have even more time to get into the mesmerizing instrumental parts (the whole album is already a longer one, it takes some time to feel it to the end) like the ones in In a Blue Cold Cloth and, as one could expect, in the album's slow-crescendo finish in Frozen Sand. I can't wait to experience all this live during the next year's Dunk!Festival. 

Sore Memories Always End costs 8 EUR.

Check: Twin Mountains

Country: Belgium

Genre: ethereal post-rock

Label: dunk!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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