Post Metal

[Emphyrio]

I used to listen to a fair bit of this stuff but thought it became quite samey. Any recommendations for interesting stuff I may have missed over the last few years?

Came across this today, fuckin great track. Kinda like My Bloody Valentine meets, well....post-metal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NLjgYa1q2Q&t=324s&ab_channel=BexigahMusicWeb

[Anton Arcane]

I used to listen to a lot of this stuff in the early 2000s. I started dabbling my toes back in it there a few years ago but like yourself I found it all a bit samey. Most of the bands just sound like a Cult Of Luna/ Isis rip off.
Amenra are very good though. As are Sumac, which is basically an Isis and Russian Circles super group.

[Anton Arcane]

These lads are good too. Again it sounds like Cult Of Luna but there's a bit of a Zatokrev/ Knut vibe too.

https://youtu.be/cqMpVZ5S22s

[ochoill]

I have an odd relationship with the genre, generally I like it but it is ridiculously saturated with bad music, the bandcamp tag for Post-Metal will give you some absolutely useless and efforless stuff sometimes.  Some bands and albums really rise through the genre mire though.  For the sake of the thread I'll fire in a few old favourites I'd always recommended, most of which you'll know anyway but just in case anyone browsing doesn't, alongside some newer excellent stuff and other discoveries.  Some of these are arguably post-metal, and flirt with noise rock, hardcore, and other bits, but would be hard to pin as something else too.  I'll stick a brief description on each.  Starting out obvious:

ISIS - "Oceanic"
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The best of all.  Ye know it, if ye don't then what the fuck, put it on, there is no excuse.  Lush, textured, paced, heavy as anything, laid a template the whole genre is still copying.


Neurosis - "Through Silver In Blood"
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Ye also know it and it is also the best.  Masterpiece, sludge horror, blueprint for a lot of the rest, as above just put it on if for some awful reason you don't know it.


Godflesh - "Hymns"
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Not as industrial as other Godflesh, paved the way for a good chunk of post-metal in tone and style.  Most Godflesh would have influenced the genre fairly heavily but I always found this to sit well with Oceanic.  Very bare and paced, immediate sounding.


Jesu - s/t
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Mostly doom/drone, but fits a part of the genre and is remarkable.  Huge wall of sound, crippling depression, great stuff.  The styles of textures and layers of samples, keys, synth lend this an odd but lush quality not found in a lot else.


Old Man Gloom - "NO"
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Another high water mark.  If you like TSIB, you'll like this.  Experiments with noise, relentless anxiety, cruel sludge, merciless guitar and bass tone.  One of my favourites.


Devin Townsend - "Terria"
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More "arguably post-metal" but I have no idea where else to put it.  The most organic and ridiculous of Devy's best part of his career, too ugly to be prog and too beautiful to be sludge.  Huge waves and walls of slushing textures and sounds pinned in by big Godflesh style, single coil rattling dirty riffs.  Look it's no secret how much I love it, but I'll stop going on about it now.


Kayo Dot - "Choirs of the Eye"
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Amazing again.  There is nothing like this, I don't even know how to explain it properly.  Chaotically written but moves excellently, combines genres like they mean nothing without sounding remotely forced.  Plenty of space and experimentation but very deliberate and stupidly heavy when it wants to be.


Sumac - "What One Becomes"
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An awful lot of how I described Kayo Dot applies here but through a different lens and less genre-wildness.  One of my favourite albums in recent years.  Anxiety distilled.  Controlled chaos, absolutely massive heft, slow and cruel but equal parts fast and vicious.  Probably the best active post metal band going.


Pelican - "Australasia"
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Another classic, slow waves and walls of guitar textures, huge sounding, but with a bare and basic approach.  Different to later Pelican.


Kowloon Walled City - "Greivances"
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Another one on the "arguably" list, probably better placed with noise rock, but it ticks all the boxes for post-metal.  Churning heaviness but not cranked up distortion, very stark approach, everything hitting deliberate but loose sounding and feeling.  Unusual structures and timings, and a lethal bass tone.  Bleak too.


Palms - s/t
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Most of Isis, and Chino Moreno.  Lovely sounds, very relaxed, going for a softer approach than most of the rest of the list but not lacking in quality.  Consistent and gorgeous, shimmering guitar in songs that feel simple but give more back in complexity on every listen.  One of my favourite album outros.


Oranssi Pazuzu - "Mestarin Kynsi"
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"Arguably".  What is it actually, psychedelic black metal?  Fuck it, it ticks all the boxes again, experiments heavily within its genre and comes out with some spectacular and unusual results.


Inter Arma - "Paradise Gallows"
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A mixed bag at first but ultimately class.  Opens out almost death metal, moves rapidly into drone, modern doom, and Neurosis-ish slow sludge later on.  Always sounds like the same band though and the album is well put together for something so wild.  Again, cruel heavy when it feels like it but often leaves space.


Yob - "Clearing The Path To Ascend"
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Ye all know it too, and again yeah "arguably" but I wouldn't know what else to call it.  Post-doom?  Sludge I suppose but that doesn't fit it entirely either.  Fantastic album anyway.  Weaving riffs and stupid heft, instantly memorable songs.


Spotlights - "Seismic"
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Could have picked any of their albums really.  Modern and clean, but as much in common with Deftones and Melvins as it does Isis and Pelican.  Very lush but thundering heaviness, bass driven, generally slow and churning but full of melody.


Partholón - "Follow Me Through Body"
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There are a few Irish bands I could recommended but these are probably my favourite post-metal from the country.  Nods to the classics, CoL and Neurosis particularly, but absolutely doing their own thing and hitting the nail on the head.  Rich textures and great movement in every track, gets better on every listen, and they are ridiculously good live to boot.


Bossk - "Migration"
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The newest album of the bunch.  Very modern sounding, but not overly clinical.  Loose and experimental but put together in an apparently straightforward way, but very satisfying to listen to.  Has gotten better with every listen but will have to see if it lasts the test of time.


Big Brave - "A Gaze Among Them"
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I don't know how to describe this.  Very droney, purposeful and repetitive, mournful but beautiful.  Loose guitar that is barely a riff churned out over sparse drums and class vocals.


Neptunian Maximalism - "Eons"
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Fuck I don't even want to describe this, it is total chaos and there's about 12 of them in the band, it feels like anything could happen listening to it.  All sorts of instruments, noisy and tortured, incredible stuff.  It is best to just give it a spin, you'll either love it or hate it.


Swans - "To Be Kind"
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More post-rock and noise rock I suppose, and fuck knows what else, but it would be wrong not to include at least one modern Swans album here.  This in particular is experimental and droning, but completely class.  Acheives a heaviness through the weight of repetition and anxiety, just relentless and unforgiving, long, tortured songs.  Great.


Maeth - "Whaling Village"
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This was a strange find that has stayed with me for the last few years.  A quick EP that runs together start to finish as one long form piece, it dives in and out of twisting, clear, bright melodic passages into rotten, ugly, noisy sludge.  Fits in about a hundered ideas and moves fast for such slow riffs, but sounds completely natural and carefully built.


Ex Eye - s/t
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A strange one for the end, Colin Stetson's instrumental post metal band.  Class album, saxophone driven but every member here is pulling their weight.  Put together very freeform in parts, but mostly densely heavy and generally just satisfying, unique sounding.


There's a list to get going on, every one of these is on Bandcamp.  I have definitely forgotten some and left out others on purpose but it will keep ye busy. Enjoy.

[Carnage]

^
Some good choices there, agreed on TSIB and Oceanic as being the best examples of the style, but add Cult Of Luna's Salvation as the third top spot holder. Perfect for late night bus journeys, speaking from experience.

[Emphyrio]

Thanks for the recs lads. I'm familiar with most of them but there's a coupla new ones there anyway. I'm just looking for stuff that isn't in the typical Isis/Neurosis/CoL style. Was hopeful that there'd been a bit of experimentation in the genre in the last while.

[open face surgery]

Oranssi Pazuzu shouldn't be there. Black metal meets krautrock or the aforementioned psychedelic bm but I hear absolutely no post metal in it, using Isis are the watermark.

I like some of the albums mention but in general it's a style that I have little to no time for.

[Eoin McLove]

It's undeniable that Neurosis were massively influential on the style but I'd always consider them as being separate from it. Much of the stuff I've heard lacks the darkness and primal or raw power that separates the best Neurosis stuff from pretty much any other band going. I'm not going to get up on my high horse as it's just not for me, but no doubting the magic and singular vision of the mighty Neurosis.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Interesting list there ochoill. I hear "post-metal" I say to myself, "I don't like that." Never got into Jesu, Isis, Pelican, so for me that meant I didn't like "post-metal." But I do like or love several of the bands you've listed: Yob, Godflesh, Oranssi, Swans. So, either I need to redefine what I think of as post-metal...or you're being more liberal than most would be with what you're applying it to..? Either way, those bands are great suggestions for anyone to listen to! 

[ochoill]

Much of the stuff I've heard lacks the darkness and primal or raw power that separates the best Neurosis stuff from pretty much any other band going.

This is sort of my issue with a lot of it.  I have trawled a ridiculous amount of bands in the genre and have found so much of it to be weak and unexciting, but I enjoy a lot of the style so I still seek out artists that surprise me in it and tend towards something a bit looser and more ragged, I suppose.  Though a fair whack of the list above would be quite clean in comparison to the styles of metal you'd enjoy most yourself, they would be at the darker end of the post-metal spectrum.  It also comes back to this:

Oranssi Pazuzu shouldn't be there. Black metal meets krautrock or the aforementioned psychedelic bm but I hear absolutely no post metal in it, using Isis are the watermark.

I know all genres have bands that become the archetype of them, but it seems Post-Metal for something so broad a term suffers very badly from it.  I see the argument regularly where if it doesn't sound like Isis / Neurosis / CoL then it isn't Post-Metal, and I get using them as the test, but it has turned the genre into a stagnant mess of middling shite.  There's a fuckin formula for putting a post-metal song together - when the 'post' tag is meant to reference moving outside the box of the genre itself while still using the tools and tropes of it to experiment in other sounds, the idea of a formula for it is gas.

I may be a bit liberal in my application of it to include some stuff that barely straddles the genre but is respected in it or influences it, which is why the likes of Oranssi Pazuzu go in the list above.  It isn't post-metal by the genre standard no, but I see enough lads that like all the bands above in groups and forums also loving that OP album, so in it goes as an adjacent for lads to check out.  I agree though, by its own definition it isn't, but it might appeal to lads who also enjoy parts of the other bands above, going for the more chaotic/hypnotic post-metal elements.  I know it might seem senseless but in the context of this I'm glad I included it:

I'm just looking for stuff that isn't in the typical Isis/Neurosis/CoL style. Was hopeful that there'd been a bit of experimentation in the genre in the last while.

A lot of the list above isn't in their style but has elements of each, here and there, with some that aren't even remotely similar but are broadly in the category.  There has been plenty of experimentation alright, most of it instead using post-metal elements elsewhere, or applying the term more loosely and pushing the boundaries of a typical metal sound into a different territory.  A bit like these:

Never got into Jesu, Isis, Pelican, so for me that meant I didn't like "post-metal." But I do like or love several of the bands you've listed: Yob, Godflesh, Oranssi, Swans. So, either I need to redefine what I think of as post-metal...or you're being more liberal than most would be with what you're applying it to..

Your few favourites there are arguably post-metal if we go by the litmus test of Isis and the like.  I would consider them so myself at least in some small degree, through my reasoning above, but they would be better accepted as adjacent rather than part of it.  But like I said too, the stuff that's adjacent to it is in better health anyway because it defies the tropes laid out and tries to do something else, generally leaning into something more ragged or darker.  So it's a bit of both - I am being liberal for definite, but it is worth considering how you define the genre itself.  And of course that's personal but my own take on it is always that the post-tag should apply to something that is testing the boundaries of its own genre.  I wouldn't be the only one of that mind, but plenty will also go with using the peaks of the genre as the test for it (Neurosis etc).

I mean Godflesh are actually industrial, by all accounts, but how is Hymns industrial?  Only in that they were an industrial band but that album is organic, warm, and relatively soft.  But - they took the tools they had and the frame of their sound and used it to make something a bit further afield.  Yob are doom, but they aren't straightforward doom, they're using elements of everything else too but ultimately to push a doom sound into another category.

Anyway sure look I agree with ye all in actuality, and am probably thinking about it too much but thanks for suffering me anyway.

^
Some good choices there, agreed on TSIB and Oceanic as being the best examples of the style, but add Cult Of Luna's Salvation as the third top spot holder. Perfect for late night bus journeys, speaking from experience.

I like Salvation a lot but it took ages for me to get into CoL because of when I first heard them, they fit into that post-metal thing so carefully that it annoyed me how much it was like Isis and Neurosis, but without the bite of either.  It was Vertikal that finally sold me on them, then going back through it I enjoyed a lot of their catalog and copped how it was its own thing and I was wrong.  Love Mariner too, that gets regular listens.

[Yung Led Zeppelin]

Love this shit. Yes, there's plenty lazy examples, but lets be honest, that's exactly the fucking same for every other genre so is a bit of a moot point. The good stuff is great.

Old Man Gloom are hands down one of the best bands I've ever seen live, got to see them with Caleb Schofield. Just relentlessly heavy.

Been listening to a fair bit of Downfall of Gaia as well lately, guess they'd fall somewhere into this. Nice and bleak!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8DnCEo10Hk

[Emphyrio]

I should probably have been clearer in the original post. Ya, it's post-metal adjacent stuff I'm most curious about. Post-metal shouldn't have any real boundaries and yet it became very formulaic despite that, hence why I turned off it back in the day. I've compiled a healthy sized list of stuff to check out and I'll add the couple here too so thanks for those.

Strictly speaking there should be enough breadth in the genre that there should be something for everyone but again, it's a scene that got saturated with run of the mill stuff and it takes a bit of effort to find the diamonds in the rough. I can understand why once people see the label they're inclined to not give it a go, though.

[Emphyrio]

.  Love Mariner too, that gets regular listens.

Lots of sense in your full post. Mariner is great. Her voice really elevates it.

[ochoill]

Old Man Gloom are hands down one of the best bands I've ever seen live, got to see them with Caleb Schofield. Just relentlessly heavy.

They are unreal, saw them too with Caleb touring The Ape of God in a small venue in Vancouver.  As much as I loved them already, the fuckin heaviness of that was something else.  Completely ridiculous.  They played Common Species and it sounded like the whole venue was going to crumble under it.  Would love to see them again.  And also Sumac.

[ochoill]

.  Love Mariner too, that gets regular listens.

Lots of sense in your full post. Mariner is great. Her voice really elevates it.

It was your fellow bassist himself that put me on to that album too mind, had given only a song off it a go until he was chatting about it one day so I went back at it.  Top class stuff.