Post-Rock

[Mordred]

This may sound silly, but I just discovered this genre of music a week ago (in the latest trailer for the new PS3 game Infamous of all places) and I can't get enough. I can't remember the last time I discovered a new genre, and it's amazing all the bands I'm discovering. I really love lyrical instrumentals, so this stuff is right up my alley. What's kind of funny is that a lot of these bands sound VERY similar, but for some reason I don't care at all. They all are impressive musicians and write excellent music.

If These Trees Could Talk's "Malabar Front" which is what opened the floodgates for me in the first place:

I put their EP on for my wife and within a minute she was completely hooked and telling her brother (a musician) about them over facebook. They're still my favorite post-rock band. They just released a new CD this last week, which I'm anxiously waiting to come into stock.

If These Trees Could Talk then led me to Red Sparowes and Mogwai. Like all of these bands, Red Sparowes is instrumental, but they're song titles could be considered a form of lyrics because they are all looooong.

Red Sparowes - Alone and Unaware, The Landscape Was Transformed In Front Of Our Eyes


Then I checked out Pelican who are a Post-metal band. Isis probably qualifies here as well, but they use vocals (as do a lot of so-called Post-metal bands) which isn't my cup of tea.

Pelican - Dead Between the Walls (click for HD)


Reading about SXSW I found out that Texas has a couple of great Post-Rock bands as well, namely This Will Destroy You and Explosions in the Sky.

This Will Destroy You - Quiet


Explosions in the Sky - First Breath After Coma


I've heard that I need to check out Godspeed You! Black Emporer, but outside of them am I missing any other good post-rock/post-metal bands?

[riotinmyskull]

other than what you've already listed...

jesu, grails, russian circles, eksi ekso, growing, earth, daturah, tides, disappearer, alcest, ghastly city sleep, eluvium, windmills by the ocean, neurosis, my education, anoice, gregor samsa, caspian, mgr, mono, the seven mile journey, thisquietarmy, destroyalldreamers, zombi, below the sea, belong, 65daysofstatic, maserati

[Mordred]

Russian Circles I've been meaning to check out. Listening to them on youtube, it's definitely some good stuff. I've heard of a few of those other bands. I'll try and check them out. Any personal favorites?

[riotinmyskull]

Originally Posted by Mordred

Russian Circles I've been meaning to check out. Listening to them on youtube, it's definitely some good stuff. I've heard of a few of those other bands. I'll try and check them out. Any personal favorites?

jesu, earth, maserati, windmills by the ocean, zombi

[Suprmallet]

Man, now I want to go back and listen to some of my Godspeed! You Black Emperor albums.

[GoVegan]

The Dirty Three are one of my favorites.

[Suprmallet]

for The Dirty Three. I wish I could have seen them on tour with Nick Cave.

[Poink]

Mogwai

Tortoise

Slint

To me, Mogwai are the epitome of post-rock in its modern context. "Young Team" is still their best album in my book; the final track "Mogwai Fear Satan" is about as good as any of this stuff gets.

Slint were the genesis of the soft/loud guitar dynamics that are typical of most post-rock bands. Spiderland is one of those albums that is pretty much essential in most people's opinion; along with My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless," it's sort of the Indie rock "Sgt. Pepper" or "Pet Sounds."

However, back in the actual early/mid 90's, the term post-rock was mostly used to define bands like Tortoise; using rock instrumentation to make music that didn't "rock" all that much. Bark Psychosis' album "Hex" is actually considered the first time the term "Post-Rock" had been used. The album shares a lot of similarities with the sound of Tortoise's early albums. This is more in the vein of Talk Talk's final albums "Spirit of Eden" and "Laughing Stock."

Fast forward to 1997, and Mogwai. They took the general characteristics of the genre, but turned the volume up to "12" (Forget Spinal Tap; jet engines could be drowned out by Mogwai's live set). Ever since then, the tone of post-rock has shifted towards a more "metal" approach, at least when it comes to the "rock" part of the tag. Although bands such as Canada's Do Say Make Think and Iceland's Sigur Ros formed and kept things more in the realm of the "original" post-rock style, with DSMT being more on the jazzy, Tortoise side, and Sigur Ros tipping their hat to late 80's/early 90's Shoegaze bands like Slowdive.

[TripWire]

65daysofstatic owns all I think.
I just got into This Will Destroy You and are liking them and also Russian Circles.

From Monument to Masses is pretty great also for kinda fugazish post rock.

For real post rock quietness check out The Album Leaf or his former band Tristeza, though there are lyrics off and on with it.
Godspeed is defunct, but A Silver Mt. Zion is going strong, though it is far quieter.

[RagingBull80]

I was coming in here to post Godspeed! You Black Emperor.

In my opinion a lot of this "post-rock" stuff is influenced by some cool Krautrock.

[mndtrp]

Trans Am

[riotinmyskull]

Originally Posted by mndtrp

Trans Am

futureworld is an amazing album.

[The Bus]

Tortoise's "Djed" from Millions Now Living Will Never Die is one of my favorite songs.

[Hiro11]

Lots of good recoemmendations already.

Mogwai is probably my favorite band of this sort. Young Team is a classic, Happy Music for Happy People is just as good.

Ibis is even better than Pelicans, IMO.

[Tscott]

Originally Posted by The Bus

Tortoise's "Djed" from Millions Now Living Will Never Die is one of my favorite songs.

One of mine too. I recently was listening to it while working out on treadmill. I had to be careful not to trip accidentally 14 minutes into my workout.

I can never decide if I should recommend TNT or Millions Now Living as someone's first exposure to Tortoise. TNT is great, but Millions has "Djed". So I usually say, "Get both."

[Cosmic Bus]

This is a genre I'm very fond of, and there is so much I feel like recommending, but it just ends up being walls of text. So I'll simply suggest checking out post-rock from all over the world (Japan, Iceland, Scotland, Russia...) and mention that you're unquestionably going to hit a point where it all starts to sound the same (understandable when dealing with a style of music that lives and dies by the quiet-build-LOUD-quiet progression) but it's worth all the trouble when you find the ones that really do something different with the sound. Have fun!

[Walker Boh]

Mogwai - Rock Action was my introduction to the genre; it's a great album for that. It's still one of my favorites.

[mndtrp]

As far as Mogwai is concerned, I think my favorite album from them is Ep+2. It's quite different from their other albums, very chill, but it's great for just about any mood I'm in.

[Mordred]

Wow, I've discovered and listened to a lot of the bands originally mentioned in this thread in the past 7 months.

I'm bumping this because I just saw Red Sparowes and Russian Circles last night at a small club near Dallas. It was an amazing show. Red Sparowes was impressive (and the band leader is a hell of a nice guy, talked to him a bit at the merch table afterwards) but Russian Circles completely destroyed. For a 3-piece band with out vocals or even a sound that's all that distorted they were heavy as hell. Just completely crushing, and able to recreate their songs from their albums perfectly. The Russian Circles drummer is mindblowingly good. If you get a chance to see them, do it. Easily one of my top 3 shows of all time.

[Achtung]

Many of the bands already mentioned, and also God Is An Astronaut.

[al_bundy]

thx

just created a Pandora station with all these bands to check them out

[joeblow69]

Red Sparowes "Every Red Heart..." is one of my favorite albums ever. I can listen to that over and over and never get bored.

I'm not having a lot of luck finding more post rock like that, though. A lot of what I've listened to doesn't really ... rock so much. Russian Circles does, but Explosions in the Sky, This will Destroy You, etc. .. just seem to meander off into mellow-ville a tad too much.

Pelican is alright, but from what I've heard of them, their songs don't really seem to have a point.

[Hixx]

Big fan of Eluvium myself, although his stuff is a lot more ambient than the typical post-rock fare.

I also love GYBE!, Mono, Mogwai, Tortoise and the first Explosions in the Sky record.

I might throw in Sigur Ros as a tangentially related artist.

[roughdraft_zero]

I am so sad to only discover this thread now. Though, I suppose my contributions wouldn't have been missed too much, since most every band of the genre that I like has already been mentioned, at least half of which within the first response, no less. Some that have still been left out though:

Holoscene

Long Distance Calling

And I don't know how much you liked the "post-metal," or how much of that one way or the other can be attributed to the vocals, but I urge you to still try some others. Some of my favorites include:

Rosetta (especially listen to "Europa," from their first album, and crank it)

Battle of Mice(features Josh Graham, member of Neurosis/Red Sparowes/A Storm of Light)

Lantlôs

Ufomammut

Krallice

Panopticon

There's still some others, but I'm sure this is already overload, especially if you don't actually like any of it, but I think you could like at least some, hence the amount and variety. I'll post others if anybody likes any of it.

[Trout]

Zombi


Earth