Posts Tagged ‘Post Rock’

Listen: ‘October’ by Maybeshewill

Posted: 17 April 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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With the release of the 10th anniversary edition of Fair Youth landing next month, UK instrumental rock act Maybeshewill have shared a new stand-alone single ‘October.’ Originally slated for their 2021 album No Feeling is Final the band felt the song didn’t quite sit on the album tonally, feeling more of connection to Fair Youth.

Bassist Jamie Ward comments, “One of the first songs written when the band tentatively began exploring the idea of creating together again, ‘October’ has its roots in a voice memo jotted down in vain hope during the band’s rehearsals for their final tour before they disbanded in 2016. ‘October’ is a song about the creative spark, about rekindling friendships and an ode to keeping trying to explore your artistic passions even when that might seem futile. A rare piece of Maybeshewill history that has its significance despite ultimately not ending up being included as part of a larger body of work.”

Listen to ‘October’ here:

Maybeshewill celebrate a decade of their ‘Fair Youth’ album with a brand new 10th anniversary edition, available on the 3rd May 2024 (Superball).  Released as a special limited edition opaque hot pink & black marbled LP, as well as digitally, this version has been newly remixed & remastered by the bands own Jamie Ward. The band had this to say:

“Looking back on Fair Youth with a decade of hindsight, it holds a particularly special place in Maybeshewill history – not least because it was the first record that, start to finish, was a product of all five of us. It took us very literally around the world to play for so many new audiences, but was also the last record we made before taking an extended break. It was intended as an overwhelmingly positive record, and I think sonically, that remains true. It’s a record we all remain extremely proud of, and are delighted that it’s getting a beautiful new pressing courtesy of our friends at Superball.”

Jamie Ward comments of the new mix & master: “With 10 years more mixing experience under my belt I feel a bit better placed to conquer the wall of sound and get a little more separation between the instruments to really bring out the details of those arrangements. In general I’ve tried to make things hit a little harder and be bit a more vibrant and technicolour.”

Fans can hear the newly remixed version of the track ‘All Things Transient’, as well as pre-order the new edition here: https://maybeshewill.lnk.to/FairYouth-2024Mix

The band will also head out on tour in the UK in May, joining forces with Bossk for a co-headline run, before playing two European festivals this summer. Find the full list of shows below:

15th May – The Fleece, Bristol, UK*

16th May – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham, UK*

17th May – Gorilla, Manchester, UK*

18th May – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, UK*

19th May – The Garage, London, UK*

26th June – Resurrection Fest, Viveiro, Spain

31st July – Rockstadt Extreme Fest, Brașov, Romania

*with Bossk

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Photo credit: Fraser West

Listen: ‘Ritual Control’ by sleepmakeswaves

Posted: 13 March 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Australian instrumental post-rockers sleepmakeswaves have released another single from their forthcoming album "It’s Here, But I Have No Names For It" following the addition of two more US shows to their growing world tour dates.  The band took to social media to tell fans about the new single: 

"’Ritual Control’ was first demoed as ‘Dr. Riff Has Arrived’. I still wonder whether we were mistaken to have not kept the old title.  Otto originally presented the song skeleton to us with the concern that maybe the riffs were "too dumb". In fact, Tim and I responded, they are the *perfect quantity* of dumb. Sure, these riffs aren’t going to earn a PhD. But they will hold down a full-time job, get the kids to school on time and read the occasional piece of challenging non-fiction on weekends. Courageous and heartfelt conversations like this are the core of what effective post-rock songwriting is all about.  New album out next month!"  -Alex

Listen to ‘Ritual Control’ here:

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The new album It’s Here, But I Have No Names For It, released on 12th April, was produced by the band themselves, at Golden Retriever Studios in Sydney, Australia. Written during the pandemic, it was originally recorded during 2022 just before the band embarked on a 3 month tour for their previous EP trilogy ‘these are not your dreams.’ Further recording was completed in 2023, including string arrangements by Simeon Bartholomew (SEIMS). The record was then mixed by Andrei Eremin (Closure in Moscow, Tash Sultana, G Flip, Luca Brasi) in Philadelphia USA and mastered by Jeff Lipton and Maria Rice at Peerless Mastering in Boston USA.

The first single ‘Super Realm Park’, prefiguring the record as a whole, is a majestic return to the classic hallmarks of the band’s melodic post-rock sound, whilst introducing new production and arrangement elements. Fans of the band’s heavy bombastic aggression will resonate with tracks such as ‘All Hail Skull’ and ‘Ritual Control.’ They also shine with invigorated melodic and emotive performances and arrangements on tracks like ‘Black Paradise’ and ‘Terror Future.’ Retaining their signature approach to heavy dynamics and crescendos the band are still at their unmatched peak when they turn their hand to cataclysmic emotional epics such as the title track and the album closer ‘This Close Forever.’

The band released a statement to fans, saying: 

"The mysterious phase of nothingness, crucial to the smw creative process, is over: our new album is finally done. Thank you so much to all our listeners for your patience. It has been a slow but intense labor of love and we are proud of the songs on this record, and grateful for the many people who helped bring it to life. Hope to see you on the road in 2024, more show announcements to come, and we truly hope the new music we’re about to release resonates with you in the same way it does with us.   Love smw”

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Watch: ‘Hands of Humans’ by Photographed by Lightning

Posted: 9 February 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Welsh avant-garde ‘post-rock, post-pop (post-everything)’ band Photographed by Lightning, consisting of Syd Howells (words and music, vocals and instruments) and D M Mitchell (music, instruments, painting) have released their first album in a long time – a 20-years long time, in fact.

To accompany / promote the release of NO, Not Now, never, they’ve made and released a video for ‘Hands of Humans’. While the review of the album is in the pipeline, you can watch the video here:

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AUREOLE – Alunarian Bellmaster

Posted: 19 January 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Lupus Lounge – 9th February 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

The notes in the press release which accompany this release are strange and intriguing in equal measure, and pique my interest for all of the things they evoke, mysteriously and evocatively. The one thing they don’t really do, it set my expectations stylistically, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

‘For whom the bells toll in the Citadel Alunar shall encounter the Bellmaster!.. The particularly sinister and insidious musical and lyrical universe that Markov "M.S." Soroka is continuously creating with his various projects AUREOLE and TCHORNOBOG as well as ETERNIUM, KRUKH, and DROWN is enriched by a new chapter… The third AUREOLE full-length Alunarian Bellmaster differs stylistically from its direct predecessor Aurora Borealis (2016) in atmosphere and feeling. The album returns to the spirit of the 2014 debut Alunar albeit as a more advanced version with the added experience regarding production techniques and conceptual writing that Soroka has acquired over the years.’

It goes on to explain how ‘Armed with a vicious sound, the album’s lyrical theme is echoed in the sound of 30 bells sampled by Markov and incorporated on Alunarian Bellmaster. The story told on this album is part of the same grimdark fantasy and science fiction based cosmos that AUREOLE and TCHORNOBOG share.’

I don’t know what even half of this means, and I can’t help but be a shade sceptical when bands talk of things like a ‘grimdark fantasy and science fiction based cosmos’. Either we’re plunging into deeply enigmatic territory here, and have perhaps gone beyond a point where lore and mythology and are merely influential elements to become something altogether greater, or we’re in the realms of self-absorbed pretentious guffery. There’s a fine line between high art and theatre, and wank.

In the event, the themes and concepts behind the album are very much that – to the back when it comes to the actual listening experience. The vocals serve as another facet of the overall sound rather than being pitched to the fore, and the titles, too, are sufficiently abstract as to be unobtrusive: that is to say, it’s possible to listen to and appreciate the album without becoming bogged down in any narrative or pseudomythos, while stylistically… well, it soon becomes clear why there’s no attempt to align AUREOLE with any genre. Just as ‘female fronted’ isn’t a genre, neither is ‘experimental’: these are adjectives, and it’s possible to experiment in so many ways within – or without – the confines of any given genre. But experimental, for many, brings with it connotations of happenstance, of the random, the arbitrary, and while the way in which samples and sounds are explored is experimental in nature, to define Alunarian Bellmaster as an experimental work would be to unfairly downplay the detailed, structured nature of the album’s many-layered and multi-faceted compositions.

‘Alunarian Ghosts of Bellmaster’ grows and swells organically from the drones of low ambience searing post-rock, only with ghostly There are echoes of guttural vocals reverberating in the eternal darkness. There are also echoes of Gregorian chants, and guttural mutterings, amplified and reverberated to a colossal scale, which very swiftly swells to become something truly immense. This in itself is a difficult thing to process, even in isolation. In context – an ever-evolving one, where the sounds and textures shift imperceptibly – we find ourselves adrift and in motion through an expanding alternative universe.

The thirty sampled bells are multiplied – and multiple, and multiplied again – to create the immense sound of ‘10000 Bells Resonate Cosmos Untold’, a title which sounds like a phrase from a William Burroughs cut-up. Muttered voices, uttering in an unknown language, flit in and out of earshot. ‘Arrival of the Deathless Interlopers’ is a bold, surging piece of grand proportions and high drama, which isn’t only spectacularly cinematic, but a sweeping piece of neoclassical music which evokes the same stirring of the senses as Mars from Holst’s Planets Suite. If there is a sense of narrative flow between the pieces, then ‘Orbiting Among Alunarian Ruins’ tells us that not everyone here is deathless, as purgatorial howls and screams swirl in a pitch void, from which emerges a big post-metal riff with an atmosphere reminiscent of Field of the Nephilim at their most doomily bombastic. At nearly ten minutes long, it is epic in every sense, while ‘Alunarian Surrender’, another ten-minute monster soundtracks doom and destruction in slow motion against a backdrop of contemplative strong sounds before everything is obliterated by thunderous percussion and slowly the tide turns to another soaring expanse of post-rock with the darkest, most sinister undercurrents. ‘UGC 2885’ is a last piece truly worthy of the word ‘finale’, almost fourteen minutes of dark ambience, through which a piano echoes into nothingness, through the sound of matter slowly collapsing in on itself.

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Abrasive Trees unveil ‘Mill Session’ short film featuring new songs

Posted: 26 December 2023 in Previews and Editorial, Recommended Streams and Videos
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Totnes-scene post-rock/post-punk band Abrasive Trees, who have become regular features on the pages of Aural Aggravation, have announced the premiere of their latest work, ‘Mill Session’ – a short film featuring new songs, interview material and spellbinding visual art, all filmed within an ancient mill.

The five-piece, which includes Matthew Rochford and Ben Roberts from Bella Union project Silver Moth worked with a team of local professionals and producer Pete Fletcher from the Isle of Lewis to produce the 20-minute video which features two unreleased tracks ‘Star Sapphire’ and ‘Tao To Earth’.

As well as the new music there’s also a live version of the previously released ‘Kali Sends Sunflowers’ and interview material sprinkled through the film – guided by music journalist Andy Hill.

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Visual artist Jess Wooller’s work has also been used throughout to produce a solid document of the band’s current creative direction. Filmed in a centuries-old mill in Totnes, the video was crowd-funded by fans of the band from several countries including Scotland, France, Belgium, and Germany.

Matthew said of the film: “We’d aspired to create this film after meeting earlier this year to discuss what we could and couldn’t do – given our commitments to all of our other creative projects. We had considered going into a recording studio but decided to do something completely different and release some of our new material in this way. Somehow it all came together with the right people at the right time and the right place. We received financial and practical backing from the Abrasive Trees community – so it’s a genuinely crowdfunded project”.

It’s an ambitious project from a musically ambitious band, and you can watch it here:

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Look To The North – A Shadow Homeland

Posted: 10 December 2023 in Albums
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Cruel Nature Recordings – 24th November 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

The brief accompanying biography tells us that ‘Look To The North is the ‘dronefolk’ duo comprising David Colohan (United Bible Studies, Raising Holy Sparks) and Zachary Corsa (Nonconnah, Lost Trail)’, and that ‘Recorded in 2021, A Shadow Homeland is 4 tracks of atmospheric other-worldly introspection; melancholic ambience interspersed with sparse piano, spoken word and field-recordings, creating an immersive transcendental twilit experience.

We’re immediately in with what initially sounds like some form of narrative, and joining as we do seemingly in the middle of it, it’s difficult to orientate oneself in terms of context. Soon, soft droning tones drift in like mist and rings out heraldic over the hills and draping the woodlands with string-like sounds amidst images of clouds and nature, interlaced with spiritual abstractions rich in poeticism, but their meanings obscure. The title of this first composition, ‘Disintegrating Consoles And Cartridges’, has a ‘found sound’ connotation, a suggestion of decaying histories and lost origins, and in time, distant voices mutter almost imperceptibly while piano notes roll in and out. Increasingly I find sparse piano notes which are allowed to resonate conjure the saddest and most bereft of emotional sensations, and by the end of eight minutes, I find myself feeling empty, heavy of heart, and pining for something lost – something I can’t quite recall beyond a vague sensation, like the occasional pang of pining for childhood or people and places left long behind, the melancholia of hazy reminiscences which creep at the fringes of a fugue-like memory.

‘The Water That Shattered Their Image’ feels darker at the start, Not necessarily ominous, but there are grainy textures scratching lower in the layers of sound, elongated whisps and broad sonic washes, and they bring a certain discordance and discomfiture. Human voices mingle into wolf-like howls, baying, crazed, before growing hushed, as if in anticipation of the album’s dominating finale, the seventeen-and-a-half-minute ‘An Amulet For The Flux Of Blood’. Here, the piano is very much the central instrument, but surrounded by layers of organ and organic-sounding drones. These sounds coalesce to create a haunting yet smoothly tranquil atmosphere.

To suggest that it seems to share more in common with post-rock than any form of folk is perhaps to pick pedantically at irrelevant details, but I mention this because these genre distinctions have a tendency to set certain expectations. But as elegiac pastoral works, infused with subtle elements of collaging and experimentation, the pieces which make up A Shadow Homeland certainly don’t disappoint, and indeed, confound any expectations one may have. Mood-wise, I’m left feeling uncertain; neither uplifted now downcast, but somewhere in a strange place and a sensation of something missing. It’s neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but remarkable that such understated instrumental works can resonate in such a deep and complex way.

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A.L. Lacey – Lesson

Posted: 6 December 2023 in Albums
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Human Worth – 8th December 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s only a bit of a brag – and a collateral one, at that – to say I’ve followed the Human Worth label since its inception. There’s a contextual reason to mention it, namely that while I’ve long raved about their being consistent in their selection of all things noisy, Human Worth isn’t a label with a ‘house’ style devoted to any one strain of music of an overdriven guitar nature. One need look no further than then recently-released angular indie noise-rock hybrid of Beige palace’s Making Sounds for Andy for evidence of that. It’s most definitely an ‘alternative’ record, in that it’s a million miles from the mainstream, but it’s not particularly noisy.

A. L. Lacey’s mid-bill placing on the label’s recent eight-act extravaganza in Leeds was an inspired one, as her graceful tunes provided the perfect respite from predominantly noisy guitar-based acts, and her performance set my level of anticipation for her album, Lesson.

It’s a landmark release for both Alice and Human Worth: having long established herself as a contributor to numerous acts in her locale of Bristol, Alice explains how “there was a frustrating sense of unfinished business. In that, my piano parts and ideas were being restricted to someone else’s’ vision – a vision which was often ‘less is more’ – a tasteful afterthought… A huge part of this project therefore became the need to challenge myself and to see what I could achieve or lessons I could learn, if I did things my own way – a bit of a journey towards autonomy – a predominant theme in most of my songs, along with finding purpose from confusion, and strength in your weaknesses.”

Lesson, then, is Lacey’s statement of identity, as she steps out from the shadows of other people’s work to present herself and her own musical ideas. And what’s striking is just how eclectic the album’s nine songs are.

‘Sewn’ opens up with rolling piano propelled by a vintage drum machine sound that’s pure late 70s/early 80s. But if this evokes the lo-fi sparseness and simplicity of Young Marble Giants, her vocals, swathed in reverb and strong yet delicate, are equal parts folk and shoegaze. And yet for all these elements, Lacey creates a maximal expansiveness with minimal instrumentalism. With swells of energy, it’s a soaring, uplifting piece, which hooks the listener immediately into the unique world she conjures with her magical fingers and tuneful voice.

It paves the way for eight further slices of creatively crafted musicality that combines elements of neoclassical, folk, and experimentalism. ‘Complaint’ is exemplary: the instrumentation is sparse, subtle, a soft wash of thrumming, droning synths underpinned by an insistent but understated beat. Incidental sounds weave in and out, creating depth, while Lacey’s multi-tracked voice is simultaneously trad folky and otherworldly.

There’s an energy and pace to many of the songs on Lesson which are far from the kind of bland, plodding fare common to many singer-songwriter types: ‘Memo’ may be but a brief note, but has the vintage pop vibes of Stereolab as it breezes on through and makes its mark. Elsewhere, the title track is wistful, swooning, without being remotely twee, and ‘Home’ brings post-rock dramatics to the proceedings. Bold yet understated, ‘Paper’ is worthy of all the airplay, and would sit comfortably on soundtracks and being performed at arena shows alike, being accessible, easy on the ear, hooky, emotive, and –

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Perhaps because she’s been doing this for a lot longer than the arrival of a debut would imply, Alice’s accomplishment as both a musician and a composer shine through every moment of this spellbinding collection of songs: the attention to detail the nuances of the playing and the production only accentuate the multi-faceted qualities of her songwriting and performance. It all adds up to a uniquely special album.

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Aches – 42 Year Sunset

Posted: 29 November 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Christopher Nosnibor

I’ve harped on about my appreciation of physical releases a fair few times here, and while I am myself striving to declutter my home of late, miscellaneous crap is more clutter than collections. Placing CDs and records snugly on shelves satisfying, and collections are the culmination of what can be a lifetime’s work. I started collecting at the age of around thirteen, having discovered The Sisters of Mercy via Floodland, and the fact that they had a significant back catalogue which wasn’t available on cassette in WHS or Boots, and so started hitting record fairs, which were commonplace at weekends in the late 80s and early 90s.

But while vinyl and cassette have been enjoying a sustained renaissance, CDs remain at a low ebb, and this is a sad state of affairs. Considered by many to be inferior by virtue of their clinical, impersonal nature, they’re the perfect balance of a physical format, and practicality, in that you can skip tracks, for a start.

Receiving a CD copy of Aches’ release through my letter box truly made my day, initially for the simple reason that this is a wonderful physical product – a hand-numbered digipak with a nice sleeve, with a Japanese-style wraparound strip, although it’s not an Obi but a semi-opaque slip which bears the band logo and the track listing. It has quality written all over it, and it’s a joy to hold it. If it sounds like I’m being a physical format enthusiast wanker, so be it: the element of tactility is completely absent from the streaming / download experience, and those who have never experienced it are missing out.

And so turn my attention to the band – well, another experience, but of a different kind. Aches aren’t quite a supergroup, but featuring members of Helpless, Gunderson, The Imperfect Orchestra, and Caracals, they are very much a new hive mind collaborative collective that represents the best of the Plymouth scene – a city which isn’t particularly renowned for its musical exports, but did bring us the unparalleled Cranes at the very least. Aches are a whole lot heavier than Cranes, though.

Heave-ho! ‘Sky Shanty’ comes in hard with a roaring grunt and heft that strains the guts and blasts on a tidal wave of brutal black metal guitar. The roaring impact is enough to stop your breath for a moment. The band’s bio explains how they draw inspiration from writings on capitalism, neuroscience, and drug use, as well as from personal experiences and research on mental illness and suicide, and that this release ‘responds to the feeling of hopelessness we feel, as combating climate change is increasingly minimised by those in power in return for gargantuan profits of archaic industries…’

It may be an incorrect and assumptive joining of the dots to suggest they’ve individually been impacted by these in various ways, but when one in four are likely to suffer mental heath issues in any given year, it’s not unreasonable – but it’s reasonable to recognise the fact that any release which confronts these issues is culturally critical. And those feelings of hopelessness… One suspects they’re widely relatable, and anyone who doesn’t clearly has too much money, and this is about you.

Aches don’t require a trigger warning: life doesn’t come with trigger warnings, after all. But Aches confront all of the topics head-on, and 42 Year Sunrise is hard, heavy, unflinching.

If ‘Sky Shanty’ is fucked-up post-hardcore noise rock, then the brutal ‘Bruxism’ start out hard and heavy before drifting into softness. I’m reminded more of Bjork and Zola Jesus during this soft close. Spinning together dramatic post-punk and elements of post-rock into a multi-faceted roaring torrent of raging anguish which essentially encapsulates the essence of 42 Year Sunset. ‘Bruxism’ is a post-hardcore explosion; switching rapidly between psychotic mania and theatricality, equal parts Dillinger escape Plan and Muse via Oceansize. To pack this much into just over four and a half minutes is a monumental feat which evidences just how articulate and accomplished this release is.

The shortest track is also the heaviest, with ‘Is That It’ bringing a barrage of crushing riffs and packing about three songs’ worth into less than two frenzied minutes, before the monster title track brings forth absolute devastation. It’s a slow, heavy, monotonous crawler that slugs relentlessly. The way the drums roll and patter busily while the guitars grind at a snail’s pace and you feel this pulling at you slowly like a thread tied to your intestines. Five minutes in, the bass cuts in low, slow, dark and heavy, and by the eight-minute mark, it’s burst into a shrieking riot of demonic torture that’s gother than goth: it hurts.

With 42 Year Sunset, Aches articulate the anguish of feeling utterly powerless in the face of everything as it piles up, end on end. It packs so much force, and it hurts. Aches bring the pain, and this is a phenomenal debut.

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Watch: ‘Cold Waves Divide Us’ by Midas Fall

Posted: 24 November 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Scottish alt/post/progressive-rock outfit Midas Fall will release their fifth studio album, Cold Waves Divide Us on March 8th, 2024 worldwide on Monotreme Records.

Michael Hamilton joins founding members Elizabeth Heaton and Rowan Burn for the follow-up to their 2018 Prog Magazine Awards ‘Limelight Award’ winning album, Evaporate.

Cold Waves Divide Us sees Midas Fall at their most confidently visceral, each song moving beautifully between quiet and loud, gentle and crushing. “This album is a heavier and bigger experience than the last album”, says Heaton. “We kept the atmospheric strings and 80s synths of Evaporate but wanted to add heavier layered elements, to represent more what we sound like live.”

Today they also share the eponymous single from the album, with a dark sci-fi video from Sharon Ritossa and Gabriele Ottino of Riot Studio. The music builds slowly as Elizabeth Heaton’s voice floats gracefully above the growing force beneath it, against a racing visual landscape of "nature, but not-quite-as-we-know-it”.

According to Ottino, “We aimed to imbue this music video with the ambiance of a dystopian jungle. Nature is genetically altered by the virus of a hypercapitalist and hyperproductive civilization, where technology begins to gain consciousness. Instead of annihilating humans and plants, it opts to adapt and modify itself to exist within the bodies and limbs of those who have survived Earth’s catastrophes. No one perishes, no one lives as they did before; everything undergoes transformation.

The technique used is a mixed technique, combining footage, 3D, pure generative, and they were edited to create a narrative foundation. The next step involved passing various sections of the video through the AI Stable Diffusion tool to create surreal and unique environments, suggestions, forms, and textures.”

Watch the video here:

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ZAHN – Adria

Posted: 19 November 2023 in Albums
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Crazysane Records – 24th Nov 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

The press release describes Zahn as a ‘German post–modern noise rock ensemble’, while their bandcamp bio offers ‘A bold escape from your daily life through technicolor transmissions of post–rock, krautrock, dark jazz, noise–rock, post–punk and electronic music. Influenced by the likes of TRANS AM, THE JESUS LIZARD, METZ, THE MELVINS and TORTOISE’, adding that ‘Adria is a compelling soundtrack to a 1980’s anti–utopian road movie!’

As a prospect, it’s head-spinning, sounding like an everything-all-at-once hybrid, and the actuality isn’t much different. There are plenty of driving grooves, largely propelled by solid bass and insistent drumming, but there are also some angular riffs and big splashes of noise.

The first track, ‘Zebra,’ boasts a bulbous bass with some big low-end and some easy, noodly synths which wibble and wander agreeably and mellifluously… and then towards the end it builds and distorts and things get altogether more twisted and less pleasant. And this is a feature characteristic of the compositions on show here. They don’t mash everything into every second simultaneously, and there’s none of that jazz / Beefheart kind of stuff that sounds like each band member is playing a different tune in a different key and time signature all at the same time. There are times where that kind of avant-gardism most definitely has its place, and works, but this isn’t what Zahn are doing here. In keeping with the road movie concept, the pieces are constructed around transition.

The ten-minute ‘Schmuck’ is a magnificent example of their ability to do mellow, with clean sounds and even a tinge of a country twang, it swings along breezily and evokes sunshine and expansive vistas. Then, near the seven-minute mark, the bass steps up to a crunching grind and things get a whole lot noisier, from where it builds into a big, driven riff which crackles with energy. ‘Yuccatan 3E’ is another colossus of a cut, running to almost nine and a half minutes and manages to take it time in pushing outwards and working a single passage for a fair while, but equally packs in at least three or four songs’ worth of ideas.

The changes feel organic, and sometimes emerge gradually, and at others there will be a sudden and unexpected swerve, and there’s so much happening that the absence of vocals barely registers.

Because the mood, tone, and tempo differs so radically between songs – and between sections – Adria very much does feel like a journey, through space and time. ‘Apricot’ is a sparse synth work with crispy vintage drum machine snare cutting through quavering analogue synth sounds – then, without changing the instrumentation or the simple repetitive motif, it goes massive. A post-rock Depeche Mode chronically undersells it, but it’s as close as I can get, at least off the top of my head. The final minute is an extravagant climax, and truly magnificent.

The majority of the album’s eleven tracks run past five minutes, with the majority sitting more around the seven-minute mark, but the eleven-and-a-half-minute ‘Faser’ is the album’s megalithic centrepiece. It blasts hard with a fuzzy, scuzzy repetitive riff cycle with stoner rock tendencies, and it’s dynamic and exhilarating. Dropping down to bubbling synths in the breakdown around six minutes in, the threat of a re-emergence of the heavy lingers suspensefully. When it does land, it does so with a vengeance, before transitioning once more into something altogether different again, skittering its way into Krautrock territory.

The power blast of ‘Tabak’ hits square between the eyes and feels unexpected however expected it actually is. These guys are absolute masters of the unpredictable and varied structure, and conjure some highly evocative and atmospheric passages, and while the playing is technical, it’s not technical for its own sake: there’s nothing showy or extravagant, and the focus is very much on the compositions, the structures, and the impact. ‘Amaranth’ piledrives a full-on doom riff, slogging away at it for what feel like an eternity. It’s a heavy trudge, and really hits the spot – again, when you least expect it.

Adria straddles many, many genres, and does so in a way that’s incredibly imaginative. The key to its success is its execution, which balances precision with passion.

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