Sam Molstad has a way with titles. Over the past decade he’s used words from science and nature to label his self-produced sounds and they so often make perfect sense. ‘Ascending the Hill, ‘Off to Sea’, ‘Stasis in Green’. Even if you haven’t heard any of his previous outings under the Orchard Thief moniker then the name of the first […]
Read moreHoly Fawn’s 2018 album, ‘Death Spells’, was a very special record indeed. But it didn’t necessarily come easy for the Arizona outfit, the result of years of focussed passion, hard work and careful planning. This is different. Where before there was only the band– writing and recording and mastering everything themselves- here there is Triple Crown Records and veteran producer […]
Read moreThe debut album by Ohio outfit, Honeymoon, is made of fantastic separate parts- chunky, post-hardcore guitars, spacey atmosphere, and plenty of 90s nostalgia. But too often the pieces don’t quite fit together. Where opener ‘Sensor’ should be seamless, it judders, and struggles to get going. Actually, it gets going fine, it’s just that it gets going about five times over in the […]
Read moreTides From Nebula shrunk to a three from a four-piece before recording this, their fifth full-length, but the pare down actually seems to have powered up their music. Oh, the Polish post-rock outfit have always favored the epic and atmospheric but, at its best, ‘From Voodoo to Zen’ crackles with new electricity and soars seriously spaceward. Opener ‘Ghost Horses’ swells […]
Read moreFirst, Caspian went dark. Their last album, ‘Dust and Disquiet’, might not have been their loudest but it was certainly their most intense- a storm cloud of post-rock influenced by anxiety, uncertainty and death. And then Caspian went quiet. That shadowy opus was easily a career-best but they’ve followed it up with five years of silence. The Massachusetts men don’t want […]
Read moreBy their own admission, Bohren & Der Club of Gore have a modus operandi. Almost 30 years and now eight albums into their career, the German trio know what they’re doing, and they aren’t afraid to do it over and over and over again. Whether they get called dark ambient, jazz noir, or “the gentlest black metal band on earth”, […]
Read moreSomething of a surprise release, this. But the sudden arrival of the sixth Worriedaboutsatan album is not the only revelation. I missed the news that, after almost a decade as a duo, there is now just one Gavin Miller behind the music. The project began as Miller’s alone so we’re not in totally unknown territory here, but the band’s best […]
Read moreThe Warriors burned bright- In the mid-2000s they blazed a trail through hardcore, releasing four furious albums of fast riffs and fiery grooves over eight years- but then they burned out. After the release of ‘See How You Are’ in 2011, arguably the band’s best record, they seemed to capitulate rather than capitalise and slowly faded away. A damn shame. […]
Read moreWe Lost the Sea’s last album, the excellent ‘Departure Songs’, turned tragedy- the death of vocalist Chris Torpy- into triumph. Strong and sincere post-rock, it struck a chord inside the scene, escalating them towards the genre’s top tier, and in the wider world too. It took them around the planet on tour, sharing stages with the likes of Baroness, Russian Circles, […]
Read moreInitially this, the debut solo effort from erstwhile Calculator and Never Young member Chris Adams, feels thinly sketched. It’s less than half an hour of lo-fi indie rock that started life as side project demo material, and at times it sounds like it. The title track shimmies along on quiet, popping drums and softly distorted guitars, and ‘Plexiglass’ is hardly […]
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