Drawing Hills - Lueurs (2026)

I can't believe I already posted about the French band of Drawing Hills... almost 10 years ago. This reminds me that very, very soon, this blog will have its very significant birthday. But this can wait as the short EP released in June and filled to the brim with quality post-rock is worth a story of its own.

Since 2017, the band released only 3 EPs so it's not the most fruitful music career I've seen. HOWEVER, for a small and relatively unknown band, the quality of the music they create is staggering. I love when guitar post-rock finds this balance between being catchy and melodic and noisy and overwhelming. And Lueurs showcases just that: the guitars play blissful melodies only to become aggressively loud and math-rock-like random (in my favourite track here, Inferno). This doesn't mean that there is no continuity here as the whole album feels very well-thought-through and coherently atmospheric.

So the EP may be short, but there is A LOT going on from the beginning to the finish. I just wish the Frenchmen won't wait another 4 years with another three tracks. It's time for an LP I think.

Lueurs costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Inferno

Country: France

Genre: guitar post-rock

Drawing Hills - Bunch of Bushes (2017)

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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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Foghazer - He Left The Temple (2026)

Take the artist's image, song titles, label and even the name, Foghazer, and try not to be surprised when you hear the music behind it, I dare you. The black-metal-facade meeting the trip-hop core sound of the Berlin-based artist is really just something else. And yes, the trippy beats and scratches are followed by metal guitar backgrounds, but the effect is still peculiar. In the best possible way.

This also means that Foghazer's debut album is one of very few trip-hop-adjacent releases that don't bore me. Unfortunately, I struggle to enjoy the genre I once thought might become my favourite. Something clicked in my mind in the wrong way. But it seems that what I need it a dose of originality. And yes, I recognize that this is probably a very amateur project, the quality of the guitar parts is not great, but I value the complexity and diversity of compositions a lot, enough to give the project an OK with a note "keep an eye on". 

According to Foghazer, the album is filled with the so-called "sound of low visibility", "slow beats, distorted memory and fog as both space and emotion" in his words mesmerize the audience with ease while the addition of surprising but so well-fitted elements (like the fantastic, Igorrr-like opera vocals in He) add up to the originality of this music even more.

He Left The Temple costs what you want to pay.

Check: He

Country: Germany

Genre: death trip-hop

Label: Hypnotic Dirge Records

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Green Horizon - Blessing (2026)

I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but let me repeat myself: one of my favourite ambient pop artists comes from Taiwan and is definitely not well-known enough. Green Horizon has recently released her new EP on which she blends ambient pop with soft neoclassical tunes, everything honest, real and intimate.

The album is meant to be a blessing "for the forgotten, for the unloved, for those in pain" and I must say that the neoclassical beauty of the piano keys that sometimes lead the compositions here but sometimes also drown in peaceful noise are something that has to bring some kind of relief to anyone in need. It doesn't matter if the compositions are mostly piano soundscapes or if they are written around the airy vocals, all of them are beautiful.

I don't know much about the Asian poetry, but to me and to my layman heart, Green Horizon's lyrics feel very much like a rendition of poems form this part of the world. Honest and clearly indicating certain things, but still mysterious. Telling everything without telling everything. Which I guess is true to the music itself.

Blessing costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Path

Country: Taiwan

Genre: piano ambient pop

Green Horizon - The Place I Buried Memories (2021)

Green Horizon - 沉睡 (2017)

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Be Still the Earth & Jacob David - sigh (2026)

It is a tiny album, but Marshall Usinger (a.k.a. Be Still The Earth) and Jacob David make up such a breath-taking duo, I had to post a little note on the EP here. The softest of soundscapes is here, made of warm electronica and beautiful piano notes, making the audience feel like listening to literal clouds.

The ambient producer from Colorado and the Danish pianist made sure to create this souondscapes with the warmest sounds: the very subtle electronica is never too loud, never too present, always just enough to employ the listeners' ears. It is not the background for the piano keys either. Rather both, the electronica and the piano sounds coexist within each other, creating one body of sound that waves a little, but always only a little. And even Benjamin Tatlow (a.k.a. Antarctic Wastelands) is here for a second! Listening to these 10 minutes is such an amazing experience!

sigh costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: fold

Country: Colorado 

Genre: piano soundscape

Label: slow echo

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Softcult - When a Flower Doesn't Grow (2026)

Whenever the Arn-Horn sisters release an album, it makes a storm in the less mainstream music world. The Canadian duo and their skillfully crafted songs (and very coherent image) charm the audience with the blend of dreaminess and punk's attitude, making the artists call their music "riotgaze".

And I feel like this riotgaze gets better and better with every release so it's only apt that the debut album (so far the band has only EPs in their discography) is their best work yet. As things should be. Short album with short songs the range of whose stretches from delicate, dreamy compositions to high-paced shoegaze indie rock of the best quality. The latter is represented by my favourite in here: 16/25. Incredible flow, the backgrounds that burst with energy and quality melody make it feel like a breeze, wishing it was longer than two minutes, thirty seconds. But that's the thing about this music: it's short and beautiful. Hurry loving the music.

But there is more! She Said, He Said is a hit banger, Hurt Me is the sisters embracing their punk side while When a Flower Doesn't Grow closes the album with delicate, airy sounds that turns into the most rock sounds on the release. Oh and very punkish of them is also that...

When a Flower Doesn't Grow costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: 16/25

Country: Canada

Genre: riotgaze

Label: Easy Life Records

Softcult - See You in the Dark (2023)

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H E X - II (2025)

Somewhere on the verge of post-rock, gothic rock and experimental music sit the five artists of the Swiss outfit H E X and they sit there and make their difficult to categorize music. Their second album leaves the audience with the feeling of participating in something unique. Dark and heavy but also unique.

Is this just post-rock with vocals? I doubt it. Is it just dark indie? Not really. The long compositions are based on the vocal parts that are not meant to be very catchy but rather atmospheric and mysterious. Remember the Icelandic band called The Autumns? It's what this music reminds me of. Very indie rocky in a way, but having also a lot of space for gloomy and heavy guitar work to introduce the audience into the hazy trance so similar to some of the more atmospheric-playing post-rock bands.

Accoridng to the artists, the album was created from a total chaos multiplied by changes in the band's line-up and I'd say you can notice that. The compositions somewhat lack order and seem to simply be the manifestation of the band's energy. This, together with the coherent, very dark texture of their sound makes a curious mixture that is first of all aimed at creating the atmosphere, but also, another quote from the artists, at making "an attempt to map our flaws and turn them into strengths, to make our misalignment with the world into a language of its own". Does it work? Of course it does.

II costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Liminal

Country: Switzerland

Genre: dark rock

Label: Humus Records

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Ciśnienie - [angry noises] (2025)

"Note: this album is designed to be played loudly. Listen as loud as you can or as loud as you’re allowed." How many release, regardless of the genre, have to include such a disclaimer? But in the case of the Polish less and less jazzy and more and more noisy Ciśnienie, it's well-justified. One of my favourite Polish bands have just released their new album and it's a chaotic wonder.

I've had numerous occasions to see the band live and I have to say that their philosophy never to release albums created in studios in traditional way, but rather record live performances is what leads the band's career forward. There is so many good things about their music, but the best one is the energy and the creative ways of showing heated emotions that drive the artists. This results in music that is chaotic (in the best way!), noisy (in the best way!) and overwhelming. The complex compositions are filled with parts that prepare you for the sudden burst of sound and create tension, parts that are the sudden bursts of sound and parts that come after the sudden bursts of sound but are somehow even louder and noisier.

This all makes me always mention Ciśnienie when asked about the best Polish post-rock group at the moment. Even though the artists escape easy genre divisions and are difficult to classify. The way (angry and energetic) baritone sax and (angry and energetic) violins lead this music makes it exceptional but it's the overall anger and energy what makes the band so unique. A broader audience in Poland got to know Ciśnienie recently thanks to their performance at OFF Festival, but the band is even better in smaller clubs, so if you have a chance, don't miss it!

[angry noises] costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Gówno (gowno)

Country: Poland

Genre: chaotic noisy post-rock

Ciśnienie - Radio Edit (2021)

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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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Hiroe - Wield (2025)

They may be seen as US new big post-rock group or maybe it's just a media stunt. Nevertheless, the truth is that the Pennsylvania band of Hiroe released their second album which is as good as the first one and includes the same heaviness of guitar music as the debut. So maybe it is true after all?

You can safely say that their music has a lot borrowed from heavier, metal music. The guitars feel overwhelming, sometimes there is some of the guitar riff racing (Collider!), but the thing that strikes me most is the pace the drums keep in some tracks. Makes you feel alive that one. That's why, if we play the genre game, I'd say Hiroe is the band right on the border of post-rock and post-metal, right in the crossfire if the front moves one day.

Being a thematic continuation of Wrought, Wield comes back to the thoughts on the "transformation stemming from personal loss within the context of a devolving world, against the backdrop of the global pandemic" and I don't know if it's just me, but the sound of the music makes it quite a bleak realization in the end. Still, with Mario Quintero as producer and Cult of Luna's Magnus Lindberg mastering, the album feels fantastic quality-wise.

Wield costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Tides

Country: Pennsylvania, US

Genre: heavy post-rock

Label: Pelagic Records

Hiroe - Wrought (2022)

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Oak - EP (2025)

Oak is both a tree and a music band from France. As one could guess, the artists are very closely rooted (haha) to the allegory provided by the band's name, stating, amon other things, that it was "planted in 2009". It's been a while now and Oak don't have a massive discography so it's always a good thing that they decided to show something to the world with this year's EP called EP.

"Oak has not yet reached its canopy" is another of quotes form the band and I can't help but wonder what that will look like when it finally happens. Because the little material we have suggests that there is a huge potential for massive, atmospheric post-rock sound somewhere in Oak's core. The EP is short, even if the second track reaches some impressive time stamp, so it's very difficult to access, but I like what I hear. The guitar-oriented, classic post-rock doesn't really seek tons of melodies, rather it's focused on the heaviness of the sound and this is something I appreciate very much. I will keep my eyes on this one (another one with so many fantastic ones around!) French post-rock collective.

EP costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Fear Carries the Grace of Stillness

Country: France

Genre: heavy post-rock

Label: ITAWAK RECORDS

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Gloios - Polvorosa (2025)

A beautiful mess from Brazil; Rafael Xavier aka Gloios, the artist from São Paulo, himself calls his new album a mess that encompasses a shitload of various music genres. But the coherent slowcore warm atmosphere brings everything together, making Polvorosa a beautiful, musical journey.

Let me quote the artist further: "post-rock, ambient music, metal, dream pop..." but also Brazilian music like MPB, forró, samba, xote, baião which I know nothing about, all of this makes up the third album in Xavier's discography. Everything is based on slightly industrial electronica, but there is also some, very distant, very echoey and everything but clear vocals. And it doesn't really matter because you can hear the genres like you can see pebbles in muddy water. There is something there, but who knows what exactly? And the water is warm and welcoming, slightly terrifying, but you have to go in and let it go.

I love it when music clearly shows where it comes from and you can have little doubt that this is the sound from Brazil. There is so much going on there: various rhythms, paces, dance moves, everything slightly hidden but also clearly felt. Just listen to the weirdness of Boiafria or my favourite, very mysterious Ficha.

Polvorosa costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Ficha

Country: Brazil

Genre: ethereal eclectic slowcore?

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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)

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Lumnos - Na santa paz da aurora (2025)

The illuminated cover art says it all: this album is all about electronic blackgaze filled with the light as much as with the darkness. Lomnos comes from Brazil and I have to say, there is something in the Latin America that invites the solo acts that bring a lot of energy to the blackgaze community.

And while I haven't heard of the artist before, it is not a new name on the scene as this album is meant to be released to celebrate the 10 years of the project. Interestingly enough, the artist calls their music "Ambient Black Metal" which, I guess, is a good way of describing blackgaze. At least the amount of electronica makes sense (albeit far from ambient's peacefulness). Quite the opposite, there is so much going on in this music, not only the occasional black metal vocals and energetic drums. If this is an ad for the artist's last 10 years of music, I'm sold.

Na santa paz da aurora costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Janaína

Country: Brazil

Genre: electronic blackgaze

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Empress Ephemeral - Everything Will Probably Be Fine (2025)

My favourite kind of post-rock is probably anything that includes neoclassical instruments in order to make the whole thing either more airy or energetic. But when the neoclassical starts playing the main role, my excitement goes beyond the metaphorical speedometer. And I've already learned that the American s from Empress Ephemeral make me feel that way.

The only ephemeral thing about this music is the band's name. Otherwise, it is crunchy, it is textured, it is tangible. It is a stone thrown at your face, nothing from the string instruments' atmosphere creating qualities. In here, the strings are in the foreground, but they fuel the music's energy and tempo. They are closer to folk strings than neoclassicism. Especially that they are accompanied by heavy and meaty guitars, making the band's works lying exactly on the border of post-rock and post-metal when it comes to heaviness.

No wonder that the artists admit to being inspired by "the raw beauty of their coastal surroundings". It does't sound like an ocean, it FEELS like it. Even the (beautiful, as always with these guys) cover art shows a violent burst of nature origins. This is this music. The only thing I'm not sure about is the album's title. Maybe it's ironical, because this kind of music doesn't make me calmer or less worried about the future. But maybe it's the "probably"'s role.

Everything Will Probably Be Fine costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: One Last Great Dream

Country: New Jersey, US

Genre: violins-led post-metal

Label: Movement & Repose

Empress Ephemeral - Empress Ephemeral (2022)

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memoryloop - being and nothingness (2024)

They started as "pedestrian", now they create their music as memoryloop; they look like your average nugaze band of the latest generation, but they make music that is a tasteful combination of slow shoegaze and post-rock; they are from California, but they music says "somewhere cold". This is the second debut of the band and it feels amazing.

They make music to "give [the artists'] silly little lives a little bit of meaning" and, in my books, it's just the best reason to do that. From the look and feel of their image, I wasn't expecting a long, classically post-rock track to open the album. It's this sort of surprises that catches your attention, definitely. And it really sets up the tone of the whole thing: it is particularly solemn and melancholic. Slow. Deep. It sounds like a narcoleptic ambient pop that is mashed up with guitar post-rock tracks from time to time. Makes me think of Midwife if she played with, say, Ranges. Amazing combo.

I love when an album takes different, sometimes very different elements and yet succeeds in making them sound like a whole. Especially when they are a real party for borderline melancholics. This is my vibe.

being and nothingness costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: earth exit

Country: California, US

Genre: dreamy slowcore/post-rock

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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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Perfumed Saturnine Angels - Saccharine Curses Exhaled in the Wind (2023)

I know Garry Brents as Gonemage, the music project that combines black metal with chiptune and it's as crazy as it sounds. The project conceived as a duo, now, after Brandon Nurick's passing, continues as Brents solo project with the debut album called Saccharine Curses Exhaled in the Wind as a homage to Nurick's name.

While this time Brents doesn't use the electronica samples and, overall, sounds more "serious" for the metal music fans, his work still surprised me a lot. There is something in the quality of the sound (and particularly his vocals) that makes me feel like I've got hit in the head with the audio wave. It's loud and it's overwhelming in the best possible way. But the compositions are far from being homogeneous walls of noise: they are experimentally diverse with mathrock-like pace changes going from slow guitar-only passages to fast and angry, energy-fueled madness as rapidly as you can imagine. 

And I have to mention that: the cover art is at the god-tier level.

Saccharine Curses Exhaled in the Wind costs whatever you want to pay.

Gonemage - Handheld Demise (2022)

Gonemage - Mystical Extraction (2021)

Check: Trash Judgement

Country: Texas, US

Genre: math black metal

Label: Zegema Beach Records

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Sáasil - Ephemeral (2023)

Sáasil is a duo that comprises of artists the are already quite well-known for the readers of this blog: Carlos Herrera Quifes (Non Somnia) and Victoria Carmilla Hazemaze (aka Nox Victoria or Oculi Melancholiarum). Both appeared with their solo music on this blog and so their 2023 joint debut should really be inlcuded here as well.

The Mexican artists blend in what each of them has best to offer: the neoclassical, extremely  airy post-rock of Non Somnia and melancholic blackgaze of Oculi Melancholiarum. The results are as good as the could be. The black metal part of this music has this lo-fi atmosphere that makes the whole thing more honest and even more nostalgic. And the guitar-oriented music is not always too loud, there's more focus put on the subtle, softer sides of the compositions and this has to be the post-rock influences. This results in music that is both dark and airy, loud and atmospheric, filled with various emotions and properly distant.

Ephemeral costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Narea

Country: Mexico

Genre: lo-fi blackgaze

Label: These Hands Melt

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BrokenTeeth - 추​락​은 천​천​히 (How to Sink Slowly) (2023)

The lo-fi Korean noise pop/shoegaze music seems to be a genre on its own recently. With many artists and albums well-received by the worldwide deep alternative music society, it's a force to be aware of. One of its representatives is 김민하, better known as BrokenTeeth who comes back with his second album called 추​락​은 천​천​히 (How to Sink Slowly).

And BrokenTeeth offers something I appreciate more than the other artists like Parannoul: it's less noisy and nerve-wracking in the lo-fi way and more flawlessly melodic and melancholic. The flow of his compositions is unbelievable and so the not-so-short album feels like a short minute of pure ethereal beauty. The non-overwhelming music feels like an accompaniment to the extremely soft vocals in most places, but there is certain rock-like guitar-fueled energy within this sea of ethereal haze.

추​락​은 천​천​히 (How to Sink Slowly) costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Sunset Strike

Country: South Korea

Genre: Korean dream pop

Label: POCLANOS

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