Contemporary classical is a Pandora’s box. You don’t know what you’ll find, and you have no idea how it could affect you! The new classical composers are always after something new, on the brink of knowledge and theory, they’re like post-doctorate fellows, and I’m sure some of them actually are! So, new compositions are fascinating, but new recordings of modern composers or even older ones can be truly satisfying as well. And on top of that, there’s another branch of composers; they might not be after a new sound, and don’t tread old ground either, but rather make new music … Read more
Tag Archives: post-rock
Dan’s Top 31 Albums of 2020
A bit late to the party, but here we are, nonetheless.
Let’s get the obvious out the way first. 2020 was a bad year, and this did have a knock-on effect with the amount of music that was released as well. While I personally would not say we had any absolute gamechangers this year, that doesn’t mean the year was an absolute waste. (At least, not in this one regard…) It was enough to bring me back from the dead, after all.
I may not have the same mettle for metal as Matt, nor the same dedication to deathlessly digging … Read more
Autumn Creatures – Funeral Garden
The Music
The Words
Autumn Creatures is not a new name, exactly. They’ve been around since at least 2013, but it’s through Funeral Garden that I’ve discovered them. The band is made up of a core of five musicians, and they are joined on this release by a string quartet, which gives a whole new depth to the band’s music.
The band plays an essentially instrumental sort of post-metal with keyboards adding to the usual “metal band” sound. On top of that, the string quartet appears here and there for extended periods of time where atmosphere supersedes riffs. What’s more, … Read more
Built-In Obsolescence – Instar
The Music
The Words
The post-metal of Italian band Built-In Obsolescence is one of those that we could qualify as “cinematic”. The compositions on their sophomore album Instar build slowly and leash out gloriously. Usually one or two themes are shyly introduced in the beginning of a song and built upon, brick by brick, until it reaches a climax, then things calm down a bit, and then pick up again into an higher climax, and then again for a final blaze. The way the group plays with different themes and structures makes Instar a very interesting experience. It would have … Read more
Soldat Hans – Es taut
The Words
Soldat Hans is an outlier in their musical setting, lilting tranquilly somewhere in a liminal dimension between post-rock and post-metal. They are an outlier because they do not demand your attention in an immediate way, as most bands in the modern era of streaming and accessibility have to do. If a listener is bored of your track within fifteen seconds, they’re not coming back, so you have to compose songs that hook people with a certain urgency. Soldat Hans are not interested in appealing to those casual listeners; their songs are enormous, expansive, patient meditations on minimal themes. … Read more