post rock / experimental

Paralax Markovian Denigrate is an album released on July 10 by a Polish musician, under the alias of DeLaa Fargis. A very concise work, the record is only thirty-five minutes long, and has seven tracks: 1) Falling of...; 2) Confusion - The Manner; 3) Singularity Quantized; 4) Outdazzled; 5) Megachile Pluto; 6) Nonenzymic Paradox; 7) Deoxidized; with exceedingly beautiful melodies, and an expressively serene and poetic musical layout, the sensibility present on this work reveals an aggrandizing and quintessential level of artistry, whose refined, dense and proverbial degree of originality could not have generated another result, other than the magnificient state of the art work that Paralax Markovian Denigrate came out to be. 

With cohesive, but incredibly dilated harmonies — that expand in the direction of its passionate, but rational sensibilities —, this album is a remarkable conjuncture of musical virtues, that perfectly align together to obtain a functional and dynamic convergence of values, able to conceive astounding, colossal and pure symphonies in the process. Invariably, its glorious qualities surpass the boundaries of its own creative and splendid authorial universes, in all possible layers of sound. 

Displaying calmer melodies that navigates in the infinite ocean of a restless and everlasting dream, the music of DeLaa Fargis rises from a graceful combination between sensibility and tenacity. With some gracious and impeccable piano passages that definitely discloses a personal universe of introspective tenderness, its overall musical possibilities expand to a vast and intricate sonorous resurgence of domineering placidity, whose deliverance projects towards the structure of the melodies a salutary symbiosis of sentiments, that progressively escalates to a monumental and splendorous creative palace of miraculous and reinvigorating glory, that exhibits on the arduous melancholy of its notes all the majesty of its renitent, but bright originality.   

With an interesting sonority that displays a formidable degree of authenticity, Paralax Markovian Denigrate — by DeLaa Fargis —, is an absolutely spectacular and genuine work of art, that deserves to be highly appreciated. With an amazingly peculiar, profound and audacious musicality, this fantastic artist has all the necessary qualities to prosper in a fabulous career, with enough talent to propitiate to the increasingly ordinary underground scene the development of more lucid, sober and innovative standards. 



Wagner

post rock / ambient

Constants is an album released on July 19, by English post rock/ambient musical project Message To Bears, artistic nom de plume of songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jerome Alexander. Relatively concise, the record runs for little more than forty minutes, and has eleven tracks: 1) On Reflection; 2) Raining Whilst She Sleeps; 3) Pull Apart; 4) All We Said; 5) Rescue; 6) New Air; 7) Away from You; 8) Small Light; 9) Convalescence; 10) We All Were Swallowed By Sleep; 11) Nowhere; with a very smooth, tranquil and serene musical style, the harmonious layout designed for the project displays a sonorous virtuosity that is intrinsically functional, proverbial and elegant. Definitely, Constants doesn't disappoint, despite the fact that the album can be quite predictable. 

With a singular sensibility that really knows how and where to insert correctly preciously conceived melodies, the paroxysm of the harmonies is never frozen or doubtful; its colorful tonalities know precisely where they should be, sometimes going for an instinct of creative vitality, to properly fulfill its sonorous potential. The simplicity of treatment in what concerns the general evaluation and dynamics of the rhythm line is also another major point of strength and convergence for the work.  

Constants is a simple album, but its melodies were conceived with passion, enthusiasm and sincerity. Displaying a degree of commitment and seriousness that expresses all the singular virtuosities of the artist responsible for this marvelous work of art — Jerome Alexander —, its easy to understand the essence of his musical proposal, as well as the profound intensity that underlies the existential glory of his splendid creativity. 

In a general evaluation, while you can't expect too much innovative features on this album, Constants never disappoints, not even for a second. This Message To Bears release — despite its striking simplicity — or maybe, precisely because of it, is a marvelous, poetic and graciously beautiful album, that qualifies serenity as a fundamental virtuosity for the genre, absolutely essential for elegance and refinement to be achieved with renewed glory and majesty. 


Wagner

post rock / progressive rock

Transmission Zero is a Polish post rock trio, that released on June 25 their eponymous debut album. With incisive, robust and grandiloquent harmonies, the sound of the band is made primarily of beautiful compositions, that aggrandize the discreet expansions of their splendid and diffusive melodies. Departing from the most basic elements of the genre, Transmission Zero displays a modest degree of originality, that works in the flow of their elegant and dynamic, though proverbially dense musical style, while at the same time their gracious and organic compositions abundantly exposes a dilated serenity, that encourages the rhythm to function in an expressively clear and salutary essence.  

A little more than forty-two minutes long, the record is relatively concise, and has six tracks: 1) Vostok 0; 2) Lost and Found; 3) Illusion of Coincidence; 4) Closed Circuit; 5) Adrift/Alive; 6) Transgression; with a modest intensity that sometimes overemphasizes a respectable degree of minimalism, the sound of Transmission Zero is a primordially diluted, calm and transcendental journey into a deeply expansive, almost infinite everlasting realm of glorious symphonies, that conceives an atmosphere of sensible and introspective density, where life can be felt as a surrealist, but hermetic dream; one that is so strong, that the ordinary contingencies of existence will never be able to disrupt or to suppress its continuously growing strength, or to restrict the imperative nature of its vividness.

With exceedingly marvelous progressive elements intricately inserted into the musical layout, Transmission Zero elaborates on interesting and rapturous guitar lines the most sober and dynamic harmonies, though occasionally the sound resents itself of a certain level of generic and delusional grandeur. Nevertheless – despite minor deficiencies and insignificant limitations somewhat inherent to the genre – the album in general is a collection of beautiful, gracious and sensible songs, that exhibits a relevant level of professionalism and originality; if on one hand the album do not impress that much, on the other, also do not disappoint either. 

In a general evaluation, Transmission Zero – the album – is a lucid, proverbial, introspective and elegantly harmonious musical work, that deserves to be appreciated. Undoubtedly, it's a very promising beginning, for a band that has what it takes to fully succeed in the underground scene. 



Wagner

post rock 

The Spinning Heart is an album released on June 28, by American post rock band Hymns for the Angels, from Boston, Massachusetts. Sixty-five minutes long, the record has ten tracks: 1) Come with Me; 2) The Offering Hand; 3) The Magic Door; 4) Corridor of the Mammoth; 5) Disappearing Shadow; 6) Forbearance; 7) The Hideaway; 8) Focus; 9) Apparition Romance; 10) The Spinning Heart; with slow, but graceful and diligent harmonies, the sound of the band is very peaceful, humane and serene, though it is distinctly sensible, and definitely knows how to penetrate deeply into the soul of the listener, displaying a warm and gentle, but pungent sonority, that concentrates over the synergy of its lurid style the splendid universe of an everlasting apex of creative possibilities. 

Despite its homogeneous nature, the sound is carefully conceived, and gradually captivates the listener, entering the platform of its virtuous sensibilities with an almost minimalist, but impeccable density. With a strength that overcomes the vividness of its stylish boundaries, the sound that emerges from The Spinning Heart is astutely methodic, but also effusively dynamic, and its essence ostensibly reverberates under the sentiment of its inherently fatalist intensity, that is amazingly crafted over the vicinities of its hyperbolic melodic tenderness. 

Sometimes, the album seems to be going nowhere; however, these moments are scarce, and the vitality present in the music — displaying a subtle versatility and a delightfully unpredictable intuitive restlessness — definitely delivers a sense of organic melancholy to the horizon of its frozen dream, that makes the music to be amazingly captivating, while its more delicate and passionate elements drives the life on its notes towards a world of immaculate splendor, to wander permanently in a dimension of peaceful majesty, where a remarkable existence waits for the glory of your consciousness to fully arise. 

With a consistent and very cohesive sound, and an amazingly serene, remarkable style, that wanders through the elegance of its own spectacular vividness, The Spinning Heart shines in the graceful honesty of its harmonious and sober melancholy. While the sound sometimes appears to be too simple and repetitive, nevertheless, the graceful creativity and the gracious tenderness present in the melodies gives the album a sense of grandiosity, that rarely comes out of the genre nowadays. With an epic sensitivity that filters the graceful components of its proverbial and lucid calmness, this marvelous album released by Hymns for the Angels can be considered — almost literally —, a conjuncture of heavenly symphonies, designed and offered to the angels, for the sake of our vital redemption. Definitely, a majestic and wonderful work of art.   


Wagner

post rock / experimental / alternative

Kota — released in July 2 —, is the debut album of Kota Kota, the personal musical project of English musician Michael Holmes. Sixty-two minutes long, the album has nine tracks: 1)Black Waltz; 2)Lyric; 3)Extend Your Fingers; 4)The End; 5)Burleywood; 6)Transitions; 7)Until The Last Minute You Breathe; 8)Crimea River; 9)L'appel du Vide; with generally long tracks, and exceedingly marvelous and poetic harmonies, this album is filled with  a wonderfully crafted and formidably genuine creativity, that definitely elevates post rock to a whole new level of sagacious originality and splendorous sensibility, unprecedented since the conception of the genre. 

With dynamic melodies, and a very vivacious musical synergy, the sonorous atmosphere conceived in this majestic album circulates within the axis of its own graciosity. Displaying a serene, but conscious acquiescence that delightfully departs from the bright disposition of its fantastic and pristine tenderness, the sound created by the artist delivers directly to the soul the omnipotence of an everlasting beauty, whose poetic resurgence dissipates the eagerness of its volatile and captivating temperance.  

As the sound achieves the glory of the restless melancholy of its dispersive essence, the rhythm gets more and more pervasive, with all of its pungent density proclaiming in the vastness of its consistence the diligence of harmonies that will never fade away. 

With a clear and distinct sound that gradually departs from the latent darkness of its diluted consciousness, the style of the artist is simple, but delightfully graceful and beautiful, as the sound delivers a melancholic stupor that intrinsically reinvigorates the life present on its simple virtues. With its tempestuous dissonances gradually increasing, the rules of harmonies reborn in a more colorful landscape full of ghosts and shadows; otherwise, the melodies — indebted to a fascinating cosmogony that discreetly compensates in the peripheries of its glory a vast conjuncture of progressive elements and lethargic ordeals — rearrange in more graceful patterns the extraordinary creative devices that comprises the fascinating musical universe of Michael Holmes. 

With a smooth, expansive, unexpected and salutary degree of experimentalism, that delivers to the audience a musical sensibility engraved in an audacious virtuosity, the sound present in Kota is a marvelous exposition of authenticity, crafted by an expressively talented musician, that has all the necessary qualities to create an entirely new genre by himself, departing from the unlimited excellence of his own peculiar and formidable sense of incomparable originality.  


Wagner

post rock

Agora is an album released by German post rock band Eyes Of Emerald Green, on June 30. A primordially serene, poetic and beautiful work of art, the record – little more than thirty-eight minutes long – is relatively concise, though has five extensive tracks: 1) Approaching The Shore; 2) Agora; 3) Cave Of Memories; 4)[Rise, Run, Remain]; 5)The Decision Shall Be Final; with a cohesive, sensible and lucid, but at the same time dispersive and diluted style, the music of Eyes Of Emerald Green is a salutary, but sometimes baroque and intricate layer of sonorous tapestry, that emerges from the precipices of its resigned and instinctive darkness as solitary and melancholic as their resourceful creative convergences could possibly conceive, in a progressively elongated tissue of harmonious dissonances. 

With a beautiful – primarily peaceful and serene – musical cosmogony, that reflects a convoluted restlessness that tries desperately to dissipate the eagerness of its own introspective density, the sound of the band is overtly technical, though displays in the same proportion a fantastic degree of creative uneasiness, that captures in the axis of its moderately restrained melodies a fatalist anxiety, that delightfully expands its colorful sensitivities to a more fragmentary dome of isolation, gradually departing from the fugacious and primordial space established by a sober conjuncture of diluted and stable layers of sound. 

Displaying a calm musical style – that is comfortable enough to retain the possibilities available on its placid and digressive diagram of diffusive melodies –, Agora modestly reveals itself as a very extraordinary album, though sometimes the sound appears too excessively homogeneous. Nevertheless, its impeccable creative perceptions outline a vast degree of dynamic virtues, that makes the sound exponentially vivid for the most part, while intermittently seeking on the everlasting ocean of the solitary desolation of its restless organic elements the graceful despondency, that resurfaces over the pungent alignment of its majestic and resourceful harmonies. 

A marvelous album that displays a vigorous amount of authenticity, Agora is a formidable and excellent state of the art work, that gets very close to perfection. With an imponderable essence – and a soul full of renitent vitality –, that seems eager to captivate the listener by the competent and precise cohesion of its sonorous consistence, Eyes Of Emerald Green had conceived Agora as a fabulous and exceedingly admirable work, whose splendid originality deserves not only to be hugely exposed, but vastly appreciated. 


Wagner

noise / dark ambient / experimental

bandcamp

electronic

dSound In Silence

progressive / metal / black metal

heavy metal / thrash metal

downtempo / electronic / post rock / shoegaze

facebook

psychedelic / doom

sludge / black metal

ambient / modern classical / experimental

bandcamp

drone / doom / noise / experimental

ambient / electronic

noise rock

stoner rock / grunge / alternative rock

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​Serge

post rock 

Scintilla is an album released on June 7, by Portuguese post rock band Catacombe. With a remarkable style, and a groundbreaking sonorous cohesion, the group manages to conceive amazingly beautiful, resourceful and melancholic melodies, whose gracefully dynamic and dense, but mordaciously diluted atmospheres resonates over the imponderable surface of diligent harmonies, whose tenacious, but sober musical alignment rises beyond the elegant vivacity of its punctually flexible creative diagram. 

Forty-five minutes long, Scintilla has eight tracks: 1) Carrossel; 2) Esquizo; 3) Sparkles; 4) Reverie; 5) Alvor; 6) Balada; 7) Arruda; 8)Faux Pas; with a beautiful and delicate, though veraciously abrasive musical layout, Catacombe’s digressive and impenitent, but sensible style circulates within the framework of its own everlasting fugacity, displaying a serenity that navigates in the introspective gracefulness of a more dilated rereading of reality. With a robust artistic cosmogony that not only defines the density and the virtuosity of its style, but comprehends the essence of its technical extension, Catacombe presents itself as a very confident and experienced band, that really knows for sure what they have to do, to achieve what they are searching in artistic elements. 

Despite the fact that the band, mostly, stays in the conventional territories of the genre, they are exceptionally talented. The group’s musicality displays an abrasive heaviness and a moderate, though genuine savagery, that not only enlarges their creative possibilities, but also dissipates its disillusioned melancholy beyond the diffusive peripheries of a very organic, clean and salutary sound, whose disruptive dynamism definitely extends over the oblique ocean of artistic pragmatic tendencies the frozen acquiescence that revolves around the original strength of such beautiful and mordacious poetic tonalities. 

With decisively gentle guitar lines – that incorporates brutal and hazardous elements in the most belligerent passages – circulating under the vicinities of gracefully distinct and somber harmonies, Scintilla gradually reveals itself as a marvelous conception of tempestuous, but exceptionally cozy atmospheres, that elegantly defines in the boundaries of its impeccable style an interesting and splendidly captivating musical tenderness, whose practical sensibility fluctuates freely, and spontaneously gravitates towards the heart of the listener. Definitely, this is a fantastic album, that displays an extraordinarily sensitive creative abundance, that aggregates a more pungent, vital and organic musical ordeal into the genre. 


Wagner

post rock

Arda is an album released on June 7, by American post rock group Driving Slow Motion, from Forth Worth, Texas. With slow, but exceedingly intense melodies, the work is somewhat restricted to the basic elements of the genre; nevertheless, the style is ostensibly resolute and expansive, and the melodies are overwhelmingly impressive. With vague, but dilated harmonies that subdue the peripheries of its intricate and highly concentrated atmosphere, the overall musicality of the sound is felt as superbly simple, but sublime, and its graciously poetic density definitely delivers a creative sensibility that knows how to properly conceive a correct degree of minimalism. 

Almost forty-three minutes long, the record has ten tracks: 1) Far From Home; 2) The Way the World Was; 3) In Exchange For a Memory; 4) Windows In a Stone Wall; 5) Of the Sea; 6) Laurelin; 7) All I See Are Stars; 8) Shadow & Flame (The Deep); 9) Hallowed Hills; 10) The Dawn Voyage; with a slow and patient degree of creative passion, the group certainly displays a formidable and highly original degree of musical authenticity, that rests in very sober, but deeply graceful and resonant harmonies. With a salutary, but mostly diluted sonorous diagram, Arda reveals itself to be an effectively audacious and virtues collection of vivacious, though melancholic symphonies, whose imperatively genuine and sagacious ambitions conceives a mordaciously superior standard for the genre, carrying out a sincere and voracious creative resolution, that really seems capable of suppressing stylistic limitations and technical or rhythmic utilitarianism.   

Like an ocean of serenity that reflects the tenacity of a personal universe of tender and everlasting tranquility, the music of Driving Slow Motion is literally a sonorous version of paradise. With elegant, though sophisticated harmonies – and a complex sensibility that really understands the organic commotion of its creative and discreet synergy – whose impulses drive the melodies to an infinite horizon of colorless resignation, Arda certainly can be considered a majestic masterpiece, that not only rejuvenates the genre in its musical anatomy, but stylistically, designs a convoluted atmosphere of sound, that renovates its own hyperboles of introspective inventiveness. 

A great album by all means, Driving Slow Motion is a band whose immensurable and extraordinary musical disposition can give to the genre a more refined, positive and original sonorous outlook. With a highly graceful and vivid style – that leaves no place for generic creative commonalities, nor monotony or predictabilities –, Arda deserves to be qualified as not just one of the best albums of the current year, but as one of the best ever recorded in the recent history of post rock.  
 

Wagner

post rock / progressive rock

I'm not a gamer. The few computer games I play appear rather laughable to the die-hard gaming community. While some are occupied with first person shooting games and others conquer ancient online worlds, I build cities or have my Sim do quite normal stuff. On the other hand, I would like to make a game. I already have a few ideas. One of them is the game being stuffed with music, mostly to enhance the atmosphere but also because I think some artists create perfect music for this kind of stuff. And that takes me to Indian one-man project Mixtaped Monk, who recently released his new album. 'How To Live Inside A VMMORPG', a neat progressive post rock album.

The story behind he album is pretty neat. A group of gamers gets stuck into a Virtual Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, titled 'Tales From Skylar'. Unable to log-out, the group now lives in the game and faces real challenges. The eight songs represent different situations and one of those tracks is the best piece of music I've heard Arka produce. While opener 'It took Forever to Decipher the meaning behind it All' is loyal to the progressive guitar driven sound of Mixtaped Monk, 'We exist in a place Hidden away from the Stars' is a musical chef d'oeuvre. Moody and melancholic, this tune expresses something playful and soothing.

Although the music is slow, Mixtaped Monk comes up with rhythm and repetitive sequences over which he frolics with guitar solos. 'Rock is still Alive but We are not' is a great example of that approach. Driving on a pulsating bass and drums foundation, the guitars whirl and flutter. Here and there Santana comes to mind. Arka is one of those musicians who prefer high notes over droning bass lines and that might set him apart from most post rock acts. Instead of bands like Explosions In The Sky or Godspeed, Mixtaped Monk seems to be inspired by Mike Oldfield and Steven Wilson.

So, if you're looking for decent progressive rock music, I'm quite sure this album will satisfy your needs. I only wonder, as I do so often with one-man acts, what would happen if Arka turns this project into a live band. The songs are great, the atmosphere is spot-on and the overall quality of this release is certainly good enjoy to be enjoyed in a live setting. Perhaps we will never know. All I know is that 'How To Live Inside A VMMORPG' is another excellent set of compositions, destined to be explored and enjoyed by a large group of prog-rock fans.


Serge