Kokomo - Whip (2026)

Last month, at dunk!festival I witnessed tons of incredible gigs thrown by fantastic artists, but it was Kokomo and the monument of a show they created that was the biggest positive surprise for me. It's not like I hadn't been expecting it to be a great concert, it was just so much more. And now, when I listen to the Germans' 6th album, I revisit this moment and I'm certain that this is one of the best post-rock gems of the year.

And it's already been a lot of them! But Kokomo's album is somewhat different. The band is for me first of all the "bear album" guys and yes, If Wolves is still one of my highest rated post-rock albums ever, but since 2011 Kokomo are constantly evolving and Whip seems to be the pinnacle of this evolution from atmospheric, but also melodic and more traditional guitar-centred post-rock to pure atmosphere built with guitars. There is a difference, I assure you. At least I can hear it. It's more like a walk through a cathedral than listening to music for me.

The clue of this music now is the atmosphere generated by a unified wall of guitar sound in which you can hardly hear particular elements but you focus on the heaviness of the whole instead. This is introduced very early in the single track A Torinói Ló and doesn't really stop until the end of the release. Of course this, together with frequent additions of metal-like vocals that do not constitute the focal points of the compositions but rather signal the highest-tempo, most ecstatic moments of the music, this puts Whip probably closer to post-metal , but who cares about labels? What is important is that the music here is spectacular.

Whip costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: 1758 Times of Weird Sadness

Country: Germany

Genre: heavy post-rock/post-metal

Label: dunk!records

Kokomo - Totem Youth (2019)

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Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - I Went to the Mountain (2025)

The Romanian post-rockers are one of my favorite bands making the melodic, guitar-heavy kind of the genre (can you tell by the number of times they already appeared on this blog?). And now as the blog is back and the band is back with a new album, we both meet so I can enjoy the well-crafted essence of the post-rock fun.

The band's fifth album shows their evolution towards more progressive sounds with the strong "inclination towards a barefaced, riff-led take on the music [the band] love". The artists also point at some post-metal and stoner elements in their compositions, but I'd say they are not that noticeable to me. I still feel like the focus on the melodies and the love for what the guitars can do is predominant in their music (even if it's slightly heavier). Good, that's what I like about them. 

There is one change I noticed and I don't like. The titles of the tracks (and the album as well, translating part of their head-scratching band name) are now in English. I'm not sure about that. I like the mystery the Romanian ones delivered each time I listened to their albums, but I guess the artists wanted to be more approachable for the "normal" listeners. Nevertheless, a solid album filled with well-balanced tracks.

I Went to the Mountain costs 10 USD.

Check: We Hold Each Other at Current 

Country: Romania

Genre: guitar post-rock

Label: dunk!records

Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - La Vale (2022)

Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - La Deal (2019)

Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - S​-​a Rezolvat. Nu Se Poate.(2017)

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Le temps du loup - Leteo (2023)

It is already the third album from the Spanish post-rock outfit of Le temps du loup. The band are known for creating heavy music that still exists within the realms of post-rock and it now sounds better than ever.

The album's theme "revolves around ideas of choice and consequence as they relate to death and afterlife" as the album's title refers to the Greek mythology and the river the water of which made people forget about their past lives. And fittingly to the topic of death, the post-rock music here feels particularly dark. The composition are rich and ever-changing but they still feel heavy and overwhelming in some fragments, as if they were meant to show how heavy the topic is. Those moments of complete surrender to the heaviness of the guitar sounds are what I'm here for. This sound feels so tangible, as if it was a physical item you have to deal with. This rough quality reaches its peak in the impressive finish of The Bride of Belus. But the musicians don't forget that a music like this needs some space to have a proper build-up to make the overwhelming effect work as intended and it's very important.

Leteo costs 8 EUR.

Check: The Bride of Belus

Country: Spain

Genre: dark post-rock

Label: dunk!records

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ROOK - Infinite Empty (2022)

Just before this year's edition of dunk!festival, dunk! label is showing us a new, pretty impressive work of one of its artists: the Belgians of ROOK. It's the band's second full-length album and most certainly best one yet with its gloomy and heavy atmosphere spreading all around the listener.

The Belgians' music is centred around Billie's spoken word and more traditional vocals with a hint of folk flavour to them; vocals that sound unfazed by the dark madness that goes on around her all the time. The guitar noise the band prefers to put in the backgrounds ranges from dark ambient's pure despair to noise-filled jazzy passages up to the louder, post-rock-like pieces. This one-of-a-kind atmosphere boils throughout the album, reaching the peaks in the post-metal fragments of The Shoulder and surprisingly electronica-heavy, horror disco in Ruis. This track transforms into the most mesmerizing fragments that bring together the psychedelic guitars, tribal tunes and chanting vocals and I'm here for it.

It's no wonder that the musicians aim for the genre-fluidity, as the label locates their music in the place where "genre becomes a nebulous concept, and the uncanny impressions formed by the music demonstrate a powerful synergy between the visceral and the ethereal". I bet this is the kind of music that is particularly impressive live so I'll be happy to see this spectacle on the dunk!festival next week!

Infinite Empty costs 7 EUR.

Check: Ruis

Country: Belgium

Genre: spoken word guitar noise

Label: dunk!records

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Georgeson - The Solitude of an Endless Sky (2022)

Joris De Bolle is better known as the member of the Belgium post-rock outfit Celestial Wolves, but since recently, also as a solo artist creating his music under the moniker of Georgeson. With the ties to the Belgian post-rock scene are known, it's no surprise that De Bolle's debut album, The Solitude of an Endless Sky, was released by dunk! records.

And the album is as far from the heavy guitar music as possible. It is filled with neoclassical sounds of piano that are both melodic and moody for the whole duration of the release. No wonder that there are so many references to the Far North and the snowy landscapes of solitude. Melancholia fills the album from the start to finish. Finish which is, unlike what I wrote at the beginning, gravitating towards post-rock with Les Feux Follets de la Somme ending with very loud and very raw-sounding guitar noise.

The Solitude of an Endless Sky costs 7 EUR.

Check: The Ballad of the Ninety-Nines

Country: Belgium   

Genre: piano soundscapes

Label: dunk!records

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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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Baulta - Another Second Chance (2021)

The Finnish band Baulta make their heavily guitar-based music for 10 years now, the debut album, Deeply Sorry to Interrupt Your Megalomania was released back in 2011. To mark this important anniversary, they created an album with rather deceitful (for a band of that impressive history) title Another Second Chance.

I don't have to give the Finns another second chance, I like their music already, with Any Fool Can Regret Yesterday being considered one of the best of 2014. Having said that, the new one may be the best one yet. It's all due to the perfectly executed way of putting the focus on the dark and heavy atmosphere here. There's little riff-racing among the guitarists, rather the music makes a melancholic, tear-jerking space for emotions. It is achieved also by introducing some very light, piano-like notes that contrast with the background, uniform darkness like stars do on a night sky, especially impressively in the album's opener in Third.

Another emotional moments come with the noisy collapse of My Golden Cage, the very post-rock-like summit of the wall of noise brings satisfaction and a lot of feelings that are difficult to describe. The overall message here is positive though, although the albums is meant to be "a journey from the beauty of a birth to the struggle of self-awareness" (not so subtly hinted in Hardly Even Here's finish), its description ends with an uplifting "Even the longest night will end and the sun will rise".

Another Second Chance costs 7 EUR.

Check: My Golden Cage

Country: Finland

Genre: dark post-rock

Label: dunk!records

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N & ninemiles - 44​.​04 (2020)

Two German artists, Hellmut Neidhardt (N) and Thomas Kempka (ninemiles) (the latter known as a member of [BOLT]) have cooperated and toured together for some time now but it's only now they released their own material via dunk!records. And by "now" I mean the end of the last year, but 44.04 is too good to skip it in favour of newer albums.

The soundscapes of the first track on this album are of the more lively type. There's a lot going on, but, at the same time, their sound is homogenous and well thought-through; there's no chaos in this music but there's a lot of mood. The darker, rougher noise usually finds its place in the backgrounds while organ-like synths and other effects occupy the first rows of the compositions. Of course, this is the thing that mostly catches attention here, those simple but also in a weird way complex compositions have some particularly mesmerizing features, swallowing the audience whole. The second track is more about noisy drones that can easily lull you to sleep.

44​.​04 costs 7 EUR.

Check: II

Country: Germany

Genre: synth-rich soundscape

Label: dunk!records

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MANTIS - Glint (2020)

MANTIS, the Belgian one, is a band that has been on the border of post-rock mainstream for some time now. I remember them from their debut LP called Magnolia but there was also a number of EPs. At the end of the last year, they came back with another LP called Glint, released by dunk!records, and proved they have everything to be more recognized in the world.

Complex but not hasty compositions on heavy, almost post-metal-like guitars with occasional violins and vocals (by Jacques Nomdefamille in quite ethereal Altamont with those shoegaze'y vibes) - this is their music. Big role of the bass line makes it very melodic in a darker way, something like math-rock meeting post-metal, the chaotic energy and heavy atmosphere together make their music roll. This feels best when the musicians give themselves more room to fully develop the compositions like it is in the longest tracks on the album. Especially in the already mentioned Altamont in which they reach some tribal-trance-pure energy levels or, though a shorter one, Hessian, flowing with loud and crunchy guitars and lively pace. It makes me wonder how awesome their live gigs, can't wait to see them somewhere in Europe.

Glint costs 7 EUR.

Check: Altamont 

Country: Belgium

Genre: heavy math-rock

Label: dunk!records

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I Hear Sirens - Stella Mori (2020) EN

As it is suggested by the people of dunk!records, and nobody knows it better than them, I Hear Sirens from Utah is one of the bands that was directly involved in the post-rock evolution and made their part when "once fringe experimental form transitioned into a recognized faction of contemporary alternative music". Now the quartet released their... only third album called Stella Mori.

It's been over a decade since they debuted and the Americans managed to get a lot of fans in meantime but their discography lacked this opus magnum of sorts. Perhaps this is it, perhaps this album will be remembered as one. It is Characterized by the dark colour and unbelievable quality of sound. The guitars are soaked with darkenss and weight, although really loud gets pretty late with Ad Caelum. And dark, have I mentioned that? I can't stress this enough, how dark IHS's music is and it's done with almost only guitars with symbolic traces of other effects.

They can only a make the atmosphere a tiny bit brighter, just like it is with the keys but still, they seem to be like single stars with all the pitch-black space around them.The whole album makes an almost perfect template fot the modern post-rock music. The artists also don't shy from the most impressive part of the genre: built-up tension and spectacular finishes, the thing we can experience in Burden of Memory and, first of all, in the fantastic ending of the album in Stella Mori.

Stella Mori costs 8 USD.

Check: Stella Mori

Country: Utah, US

Genre: guitar post-rock

Label: dunk!records

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I Hear Sirens - Stella Mori (2020) PL

Jak zapewniają ludzie z dunk!records, a nikt na tym nie zna się bardziej niż oni, I Hear Sirens z Utah to jeden z tych zespołów, które bezpośrednio uczestniczyły w ewolucji post-rocka i działał kiedy "niegdysiejsza eksperymentalna forma przeistoczyła się w uznawaną część współczesnej muzyki alternatywnej". Teraz kwartet wydał swój... dopiero trzeci krążek zatytułowany Stella Mori.

Od ich debiutu minęła już ponad dekada i Amerykanie dorobili się rzeszy fanów, ale w ich twórczości brakowało tej kropki nad i, swoistego opus magnum. Być może to tegoroczna płyta zostanie tak zapamiętana. Charakteryzuje ją mroczna barwa i krystaliczna jakość dźwięku. Gitary są przeniknięte mrokiem i ciężarem chociaż dopiero z czasem, w Ad Caelum, robi się naprawdę głośno. I mrocznie, nie mogę wyjść z podziwu nad tym jak mrocznie brzmi muzyka IHS chociaż wszystko jest zasługą gitar, nie ma tu prawie żadnych dodatków.

Te co najwyżej rozjaśniają nieco klimat tak jak klawisze, które jednak zdają się być jak pojedyncze gwiazdy w całkowicie czarnej przestrzeni. Cały album to praktycznie model idealny dla współczesnego post-rockowego grania. Muzycy nie uciekają też od najbardziej efektownej strony gatunku, budowanego napięcia i spektakularnego finale, których doświadczamy w Burden of Memory i, przede wszystkim, w fantastycznym finale krążka w tytułowym Stella Mori.

Stella Mori kosztuje 37 złotych (8 USD).

Sprawdź: Stella Mori

Kraj: Utah, US

Szufladka: guitar post-rock

Label: dunk!records

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Astodan - Bathala (2020) EN

If it wasn't for the well-known fact, I'd be just after this year's Dunk!festival, it's a great thing then that I can write about some good post-rock from Belgium. Namely, Astodan of Brussels that showed their second album Bathala released, of course, by dunk!records.

As it's supposed from a good post-rock band, their album starts with a small earthquake in Hukluban. The music here is very guitar-oriented, it's clear that the artists can transform the quantity of guitar sounds into sound power. On the other hand, there's quite a lot of peaceful moments, sometimes turning almost into instrumental ambient.

But when the Belgians think it's fitted, they can simply swipe out the audience with the might of their sounds. Te best here is definitely Likha, a composition that's the longest and written in the most interesting way with a lot of pace changes, walls of sky-reaching sounds and tear-jerking crescendos. Buaya on the other hand is an example of a song more focused on riffs, still though, the whole album is more about the crushing atmosphere.

Bathala costs 7 EUR.

Check: Likha

Country: Belgium

Genre: atmospheric post-rock
Label: dunk!records

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Astodan - Bathala (2020) PL

Gdyby nie wiadoma sprawa, byłbym właśnie świeżo po festiwalu Dunk!, znakomicie się więc składa, że mam chociaż okazję napisać o post-rocku z Belgii. Jest nim Astodan, kwintet z Brukseli, który pokazał właśnie swój drugi krążek Bathala wydany oczywiście przez dunk!records.

Tak jak przystało na dobry post-rock, zespół zaczyna od małego trzęsienia ziemi w Hukluban. Ich muzyka jest bardzo gitarowa, widać, że potrafią przemienić ilość gitar w niezłej jakości moc dźwięku. Z drugiej strony, dość często zdarzają im się momenty spokojne, czasem przechodzące wręcz w instrumentalny ambient.

Gdy jednak Belgom tak pasuje, potrafią zmieść z powierzchni ziemi siłą swoich dźwięków. Najlepiej brzmi zdecydowanie Likha, kompozycja najdłuższa i najciekawiej napisana, z licznymi zmianami tempa, ścianami niebosiężnych dźwięków i wyciskającymi łzy z oczu crescendami. Buaya z drugiej strony jest trochę bardziej skoncentrowana na riffach, w całości jednak jest to płyta zdecydowanie bardziej przygniatająco-atmosferyczne.

Bathala kosztuje 32 złote (7 EUR).

Sprawdź: Likha

Kraj: Belgia

Szufladka: atmospheric post-rock
Label: dunk!records

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