Pothamus - Abur (2025)

The sophomore album that is even better than the debut? It's how it is with the Belgian doomgazers/ sludge metal heads of Pothamus who released their new album via Pelagic making it the most interesting post-metal release of the beginning of the year. The psychedelic meeting the heaviness? Count me in!

This repetitious, tribal-like pace is certainly what strikes the most while listening to Abur. The flow of the tracks is unbelievable, you can start listening to the first track and suddenly realize that it's been almost an hour and you sit mesmerized by the guitar psychedelia. And this doesn't mean that the album is monotonous, quite the opposite, there is space for dance-inducing, high voltage parts and for meditative, musical mantras at the same album.

An important part of the band's philosophy is the way it looks to the Eastern cultures, which can be spotted even by complete laymen in the title of the first track (and I assume the following ones as well). The spiritual component of the Belgians' music is so important for them that the band describes themselves using the phrase "mixing music and metaphysics" as the starting point. In other place, they say about this album that "[the songs] are vessels of meaning and ideas, meant to be carried, reshaped, sung back into the air". For me, the mesmerizing, tribal-like rhythm certainly invites some self-reflecting states.

Abur costs 7.99 EUR.

Check: Zhikarta

Country: Belgium

Genre: spiritual doomgaze

Label: Pelagic Records

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E-L-R - Vexier (2022)

I was lucky enough to witness E-L-R's beginnings when back in 2019 they performed live during the Bergmal Festival in Zurych with their very fresh debut album Mænad. It was quite mind-blowing so I couldn't wait for the continuation of their career. The struggle is over with the band's new album called Vexier.

The combination of very heavy guitar riffs from the sludge/post-metal musical area with the dispersed and airy but also very psychedelic vocals is the core of the Swiss band's work. The said vocals express extremely ethereal lyrics ("opiate the Sun" sounds like something taken from a braver, lyrics-wise, version of the old Slowdive or MBV) divided into short phrases that make them feel like tribal-esque mesmerizing chanting. All of this makes this sophomore album a very literal continuation of the debut, including such an interesting detail as longer pauses between tracks filled with subtle sound samples of cracking fire and other nature-originating moody tunes.

The mesmerizing features of the band's works are present also in the music itself: its slow, doom-like pace and psychedelic guitars make it easy to get lost within the sounds. As their Bandcamp page describes it, they "oscillates elegantly between velvet darkness and flaring bursts of high energy" but the bursts are always toned down, covered by the layers of post-metal noise that makes everything a very homogeneous and smooth (the velvet reference is on point!) sound.

Vexier costs 6.99 USD.

E-L-R - Mænad (2019)

Check: Seeds

Country: Switzerland

Genre: ethereal post-metal

Label: Prophecy Productions

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Hundred Year Old Man - Breaching (2018) EN

Coming from Leeds, England, Hundred Year Old Man on their debut album called "Breaching"  show power that any younger person would envy them. Soul crashing guitars and the vocalist's screams are exactly what we want in a well-written post-metal music.

The album is opened with an intriguing intro, in which a gloom, instrumental drone is the only thing accompanying screams produced by the vocalist. It makes a great starter for the overall gloomy album that begins for good with the great  "Black Fire" which goes on for long minutes of ever changing pace and raw noise. It comes to an end with a wall of sound opening "The Forest" which presents one of the few moments in which the band's music gets this flow provided by electronic background. Truly epic music comes with the album's most impressive "Long Wall" where drums and guitars create one, massive wall of perfectly loud sounds.

The Englishmen don't know the meaning of boredom. Sludge metal guitars with their impressive massiveness and the way they warm up as gracefully as a tank, still make some space for catchy samples taken from radio broadcasts or old movies. And, what is quite surprising, for some very slow but also unsettling fragments as the one in "Clearing the Salients". 

"Breaching" costs 5 GBP.

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Hundred Year Old Man - Breaching (2018) PL

Wywodzący się z angielskiego Leeds Hundred Year Old Man na swojej debiutanckiej płycie "Breaching" pokazują siłę, której pozazdrościła by im niejedna młodsza osoba. Miażdżące gitary i wściekłe krzyki wokalisty są dokładnie tym, czego oczekujemy bo dobrze napisanej post-metalowej muzyce.

Płytę zaczyna intrygujące intro, w którym ponury instrumentalny drone jest jedynym, co towarzyszy screamowi wokalisty. Dobrze wprowadza ono do ponurego w wydźwięku albumu zaczynającego się na dobre w znakomitym "Black Fire" ciągnącym się przez długie minuty zmiennego tempa i surowego hałasu. Utwór dobiega końca w ścianie dźwięku otwierającej "The Forest", w którym następuje jeden z nielicznych momentów, w których muzyka zespołu nabiera flowu dzięki elektronicznemu backgroundowi. Naprawdę epicko zaczyna się robić w najefektowniejszym na płycie "Long Wall", gdzie perkusja i gitary tworzą prawdziwą ścianę doskonale głośnych dźwięków.

Anglicy z pewnością nie pozwalają się nudzić. Sludge metalowe gitary, zachwycające swoją masywnością i rozkręcające się z gracją wielotonowego czołgu zostawiają nieco miejsca dla chwytliwych sampli wziętych z audycji radiowych czy starych filmów. A także, co dość wyjątkowe, dla kilku bardzo spokojnych choć niepokojących fragmentów, tak jak "Clearing the Salients". 

"Breaching" kosztuje 25 złotych (5 GBP).

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SUBNOIR - A Long Way From Home (2018) EN

Norway is a true homeland for metal projects literally swarming all around the place, sometimes though, a project offers more atmosphere and post-rockish melancholy and thus post-metal is born. Just like it is with the Akershus-based band SUBNOIR's debut.

Post-metal-sludge music of the project led by Kenneth Mellum gives us what we all want - aggressive guitars, diabolic vocals and synth backgrounds. The tracks are mesmerizing with the dark energy they involve and really well-written music. One track that's especially noteworthy is "Owlking" with its ultra-desperate howling of a vocal going together with a choir of the undead introducing almost sacral atmosphere to the music.

A bit of peace is brought by, no surprise there, "Serenity" but it's only to make explosion in the following "Fading Sun" sound even more epic. And it all leads to a monstrous "Dissipation" that ends this brilliant album.

"A Long Way From Home" can be yours for 5 EUR (49 NOK).

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SUBNOIR - A Long Way From Home (2018) PL

Norwegia to prawdziwa wylęgarnia metalowych projektów, czasem jednak zespół oferuje więcej atmosfery i post-rockowej melancholii i oto mamy post-metal. Taki jak debiut formacji z Akershus SUBNOIR. 

Post-metalowo-sludge'owa muzyka kapeli prowadzonej przez Kennetha Melluma daje nam to, czego chcemy - agresywne gitary, diaboliczne wokale i synthowe tła. Kawałki są wciągające dzięki zawartej w nich mrocznej energii i świetnie napisanej muzyki - zwraca uwagę na przykład "Owlking" z ultra desperackim zawodzeniem wokalu na przemian z chórem nieumarłych wprowadzającym niemal sakralną atmosferę.

Nieco uspokojenia wprowadza, jak można się było spodziewać, "Serenity" jednak tylko po to by następne uderzenie w "Fading Sun" wybrzmiało jeszcze donioślej. A wszystko zmierza do monstrualnego "Dissipation" wieńczącego ten niesamowity album.

"A Long Way From Home" można mieć za 22 złote (49 NOK).

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