Post-Rock Icons Tortoise Return with Transportive LP
Tortoise’s Touch is a cinematic record that is profoundly human and entirely spectral. It’s a world unto itself, filled with beautiful landmarks and perplexing questions.
post-rock
Modern Nature’s ‘The Heat Warps’ Is Superb and Compelling
Modern Nature’s new LP, The Heat Warps, is fabulously compelling and questioning, and the questions it asks are not the ones you expect to hear on a pop album.
Scree Expand Their Sonic Palette on Dazzling New LP
Brooklyn trio Scree imbue their sound with mystery and a wide array of stylistic shifts, but there’s deep and comforting warmth to the music they make.
Swans’ ‘Birthing’ Wants and Demands Transformation
Swans’ Birthing isn’t so much music as a reaction against music—a disavowal of melody, pleasure, and your nervous system’s comfort threshold.
Mogwai’s Legendary Enigma Explored in New Documentary
If the Stars Had a Sound may not have all the answers, but it intuitively understands Mogwai’s enduring charisma, even if their enigma remains.
Black Country New Road’s New LP Skews Refreshingly Feminine
Black Country New Road’s new LP embraces ornate baroque pop, shifting from raw intensity to intricate melancholy. Brilliant yet overstuffed, it rewards patience.
Mogwai Find New in the Familiar with ‘The Bad Fire’
Despite moments of overfamiliarity and some flat vocal experiments, Mogwai’s 11th studio record captures a band still reinventing their signature sound.
Talk Talk Brought Fire and Negative Space to ‘It’s My Life’
When Talk Talk released It’s My Life in 1984, they shook the new wave establishment with great songs and a new approach, while refusing any genre boxification.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Opus Remains Powerful and Prescient
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven by Godspeed You! Black Emperor reminds us that sometimes the most powerful protest is (nearly) wordless.
Dirty Three Prove the Theory That Love Changes Everything
Dirty Three continue their long career of making organic, meditative post-rock jazz that always humbly approaches a single moment, without pretense or distraction.
MONO Recommit with Life-Affirming ‘Oath’
MONO return with a post-rock album about faith and commitment, which serves as a fitting epitaph for their long-term artistic collaboration with Steve Albini.
L’étrangleuse Find Artful Balance with ‘Ambiance Argile’
L’étrangleuse’s music draws from all sides of the Mediterranean and beyond, creating something new and categorically nebulous in a way that works well.