A Cheery Wave Records – 28th August 2026
Christopher Nosnibor
As bands dissolve, and / or their members’ interests expand new bands emerge. A collaborative post-rock band featuring members of Flies Are Spies From Hell, Din Of Celestial Birds and Monsters Build Mean Robots, who also include Human Worth alumni A. L. Lacey among their ranks, Winter at Sea are one of those bands. And while those bands are many, some offer more than others. And among those are Winter At Sea, whose field is ‘staggering, earthy, post-rock that moves from ghostly ambient stretches through to dense thundering cacophonies’.
Hearts is an EP which contains just the one track, which plays for just shy of twenty-one minutes. That said, it is presented as a suite in five pieces, individually marked as ‘Glimpse Of The Horizon’, ‘Heart In Mouth’ ‘Gathering Dark’, ‘A Sleeping Mist’, and ‘Descent Into The Undertow’. What’s more, there is a moment where it tapers to near-silence around the mid-point, and as such, does feel like a work of two halves.
It begins with soft, airy synth notes which wander here and there, in a fashion very much reminiscent of the likes of Tangerine Dream, before gradually unfurling to expand the instrumental palette, with delicate guitar work, before finally breaking into a grand wash of sound some three minutes or so in. it’s here that they attain peak post-rock, and I find myself transported to what now feels like a golden age, a spell where Explosions in the Sky, Her Name is Calla, and I Like Trains were offering different shades of kaleidoscopic crescendo, some of which would last for what would feel like a blissful eternity.
Returning from the low ebb, it’s a delicate, graceful combination of subdued piano and yawning woodwind which sets the scene for the next surge… which abruptly halts, leaving a hanging suspense amidst chiming picked guitar notes. This segment feels like it should have more emotional resonance than it does, and perhaps I need to spend more time in its company in order to feel it rather than simply admire its musicality, the attention to detail. Or perhaps I’ve simply been overexposed to pleasant, atmospheric post-rock passages, and now it’s just something that washes over me. It’s nice, but it doesn’t grip me… but then the swell begins as the final couple of minutes or so approach, and while they resist the urge to really let fly, there is a clear climax to this ambitious work. The fact that it’s the second in a trilogy is worthy of note, too: as a standalone, it showcases texture and range, but it could well be quite the experience to hear all three EPs as a single, continuous work.
AA
Aural Aggravation 