So I stumbled across some bands that I’ve never head of on one of my other forums… Can anyone give me some ideas on what any of these peeps sound like and is it woth my time to check out?
A Storm Of Light
Do Make Say Think
Explosions In The Sky
God Is An Astronaut
russian Circles
Set Fire To Flames
This Will Destroy You
Back When
Bossk
Irreversible
Manatees
Minsk
Tephra
3rd And The Mortal
Angel Eyes
Apsis
Blackwaves
Callisto
Celestiial
Dead In The Water
Disappearer
Giant Squid
Giant Song
Kehlvin
Latitudes
North
The Other Side Of Sky
Windmills By The Ocean
Also… bands in this category that I’ve heard of but neve checked out and need album suggestions :
The Silver Mt ion Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band
red Sparrowes
Mono
Cult Of Luna
Neurosis
Battle Of Mice (I thought the split with jesu was boring so keep that in mind)
mono are cool, so are tra-la-la band. check out their debut. it’s as close to GYBE as you can get, but with vox.
battle of mice are eh.
set fire to flames are very experimental, they rely on field recordings and weird tones but they make the occasional ‘walking in the desert’ song here or there.
Explosions In the sky are good, but I haven’t heard anything of theirs in five years. that album at the time, in 2003, was eh, but before that wasn’t bad
Red Sparowes are very great, big fan, do check them out first if you have to, above all others
Neurosis are superb as well, they did a few records with Jarboe of Swans, which worked weirdly enough.
Giant Squid are weird enough, I have their 2006 album Metridium Fields. Its also a case of a band that has some connection to their name more than just picking something that sounds cool. Some of the members are heavily involved in the field of marine biology.
Krowe - Neurosis / Red Sparowes / Battle of Mice / A Storm of Light are all related.
the guy who does the visuals for Neurosis is Josh Graham, who formed strictly instrumental band Red Sparowes w/ some friends from Isis.
Battle of Mice is Josh Graham & Julie Christmas of Made Out of Babies, and only have an LP + the 2 songs on the split. The split is lower quality then the LP, partly due IMO to Graham’s vocals.
A Storm of Light is Josh’s new band, Battle of Mice is ka-put (for now, maybe perm) and Josh left Red Sparowes (who still put out a great EP w/o him) and formed A Storm of Light to work on his solo stuff. Which is a little like Neurosis & Battle mixed /w his vox.
Personally I’d say you want to grab - Neurosis - Eye of Every Storm (most post-rock sounding), Red Sparowes - At the Soundless Dawn.
Battle of Mice - A Day of Nights and A Storm of Light - When the Ocean Wept Black are the 2 full releases from these bands, with ASOL also doing a split w/ Nadja and BoM has the jesu split.
off the rest of your list - Minsk sounds like mid/late period Neurosis. This Will Destroy You, Do Make Say Think, Explosions in the Sky & Russian Circles all come from the more indie rock tip. with DMST being the most collage rock-ish… I ain’t heard the rest of that list.
Mono - think Mogwai w/ strings
Cult of Luna - early Isis-ish
The Silver MT BLAH BLAH BLAH is the spin off of Godspeed! You Black Emperor. and is pretty good.
Godspeed You Black Emperor
Fly Pam Am
Battles
65daysofstatic
Pelican
(not sure if they qualify) Holy Fuck
A few were already listed here, but I know there’s more that i’m just jt thinking of at the moment. But, I also highly recommend Explosions in the Sky and Zion. Zion is basically Godspeed with no guitars and all strings, or at least were.
Minsk - overheard these guys playing at a show recently and because I wasn’t watching it was easy to believe they had sirs Kelly and Von Till up on stage with them. Thoroughly uninspiring, maybe I need to give them a second chance.
only heard the second Red Sparowes and like it well enough, but it doesn’t reinvigorate the post-rock template. I hear the first one is far better?
Mono are incredible and rival GY!BE with the scope of some of their work. Start with “One More Step and You Die” and move forward. If I have one negative thing to say about this band it’s that they pull at the heartstrings a bit much with their ballad chord arrangements, almost as if to provoke an immediate emotional response out of you. Is that really negative though? Guess I should give them credit for being so profoundly stirring in a genre built on subtleties. Also one of the loudest shows I’ve seen.
Sorry guys, I really can’t get into Silver Mt Zion because of the vocals. They would be be easy to see past if they weren’t so prominent and Efrim wasn’t forcing his political ideologies down my throat. They’ve got some really interesting ideas and a few listenable songs, however.
As for Neurosis, everyone has a favorite, mine being “Through Silver in Blood”, which isn’t really post-rock in the traditional sense, but the structures and sweeping dynamics of the songs within could still make it fall within the genre. I recommend this one just because it’s one of the most ass-kicking sets of tunes you’ll ever hear. Everything they did after that one, especially “A Sun That Never Sets” has more of a post-rock/metal bent, with more emphasis on winds and strings.
I’d also listen to Slint and Tortoise if you haven’t heard them already. Tortoise are a bit harder to categorize, but what I’ve heard of them is a good mix of kraut inspired electronics, jazz and post-rock song arrangements.
Explosions In The Sky are quite good. I’d recommend ‘The Earth is not a Cold Dead Place’ and ‘All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone’ the latter is more recent, 2007 I think. The song ‘The Birth and Death of the Day’ from ‘All of a Sudden…’ is a great song, prob their best. Broadrick did a cover of it recently but it was not as near as good as the original.
God is an Astronaut are decent. Saw them live in '03 or '04 and they were cool then I got some of their stuff and it wasn’t as impressive listening to on a stereo. They had a s/t album last year which was ok, there was one song on it (can’t remember the name, it was quite long though) that was really good.
Ok… Thanks for the input. Going to grab a few of these that all of you applaud and give it a whirl. On a side note I stumbled across a pretty decent post rock/metal band called “Long Distance Calling”. Like it very much. Very chilled guitar driven work. Anyone else heard of them?