Let’s begin with Usti Waya‘s folk-lined experimental drone album, From Dust, We Rise. It’s a wonderful journey with loads of instruments thrown in – violin, clarinet and banjo to name a few – in order to create an exotic and intense sound. I’m not big into drone music, but this one is very good!

[Click here to stream Vexxes – Common Ground]
Releasing on May 6th, Vexxes‘ new EP, Common Ground, is a punkish alternative post-rock album. It’s a bit of an awkward description, but I bet you can imagine how it sounds by reading it. It’s pretty good but very standard stuff.

Up next is the first band formed from the ashes of New Apple Taste: T T T, with a single, 1918. Born from NAT’s saxophonist Elyze, T T T is a much more reposed jazz project that incorporates electronic elements to it and remains instrumental, at least for now. I really like this single and am looking forward to a full EP or album release!

Floral is probably already very well-known in the math rock community, but I just became aware of them and grabbed The Second Floral EP. Like other math rock bands, it features mind-melting musicianship but with a more chill and psychedelic, hippie vibe. I really like this EP.

[Click here to stream Protest the Hero – Caravan (only for subsribers)]
If you disregard Kezia’s and Fortress’ multi-song suites, Caravan is Protest the Hero‘s longest song to date, at 8:46 of running time. It’s more of PtH’s signature fast-paced technical melodic progressive metal, but with even more of different parts within the song. It’s definitely my favourite song off of their subscription-based album, Pacific Myth, which should be complete at this point and ready for worldwide release.

Did you ever wonder what acoustic djent might sound like? Well, there’s Ian Ethan Case who did something kinda similar, but Robert Graefe‘s album, The Unwritten Chapter, focuses more on the heavy side of the acoustic, but still with some amazing guitar percussions, and on the instrumental side of things. That’s a good thing too because I’m not a fan of his voice, unfortunately.

Then comes Your Protected, a British mixture of math and post rock. Meaning that Kings of Summer ebbs and flows between energetic, math-ish parts and more contemplative post-ish ones, all in under 6 minutes (the longest track is 5:53). So, it’s a bit short for the post-rock standard, but still does a good job even if all the atmosphere introduction is excised.

And finally for today, Nadia Reid‘s album, Listen to Formation, Look for the Signs. She’s a Neo-Zealander singer-songwriter with folk-like compositions not unlike Sufjan Steven’s calmer moments. It’s a very good album that will help me refresh my brains in between listening sessions of experimental avant-jazz or brutal technical atmospheric black metal.