onebloodonelife said:
It was. 
I plan on giving it a listen tonight.
GOOD
I found the article I spoke of. This was written 2 years ago, so it's not up to date, and mainly was for some friends who didn't know much about the genre but were interested (so it's not all that in depth). I can't believe I failed to mention Wildnerness and Hope of the States in my first post. Especially Wilderness, I freaking have a group for them on Last FM and I didn't mention them. Anyways.
Over the last few years I’ve become quite a large fan of a genre of music called “post-rock”. While this form of music’s name is somewhat self-explanatory, further description is necessary. Wikipedia states: The term post-rock was coined by Simon Reynolds in issue 123 of The Wire (May 1994) to describe a sort of music "using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbres and textures rather than riffs and power chords."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-rock Post-rock usually has some kind of large build up or crescendo in its songs, frequently moving from soft/quiet tones to loud/harsh tones. Post-rock is extremely powerful and beautiful music, it can sound like a gentle breeze suddenly turning into a hurricane. It is generally instrumental and lacks vocals, more akin to orchestrated soundtracks than conventional main stream rock and roll. I’d like to briefly introduce some of my favorite post-rock bands.
Slint is considered by many to be the fathers (or grandfathers…) of post-rock on their classic album ‘Spiderland’ (just read every single interview the band did last year for their brief reunion tour, how many times can a band be asked how they feel about creating post-rock?!). ‘Spiderland’’s shifting dynamics and tempos set the standard for the “quiet, loud, quiet, loud” song structure typically used in the genre. Lead “singer”, Brian McMahan mumbles, whispers, screams his lyrics as stories. While the lyrics themselves aren’t necessarily dark, his vocal delivery mixed with the music itself helps to give a chilling, almost frightening, atmosphere to the album. ‘Spiderland’ is a necessity to any post-rock fan’s collection, and likely enjoyed by those who even say they hate the genre.
Mogwai is popularly cited as having joined to create “serious guitar music”. They have mixed the dynamics of post-rock with their obvious rock influences in a way that’s resulted in The Cure’s Robert Smith frequently calling them his favorite band. Mogwai is probably my favorite “pure instrumental post-rock” band, always impressing me with their enormously powerful crescendos and dense instrumentation. Famous for their live performances, Mogwai often will play lengthy extended versions of just a handful of songs in their sets, frequently not even stopping between tracks. Mogwai has evolved over their career, gradually making their sound more dense with production and electronics, making their entire catalog enjoyable to listen to and compare. Last year’s ‘Government Commissions’ is a great place to start if you’re interested, being a compilation of some of their best tracks recorded in a live setting for the BBC.
Explosions in the Sky have quickly become one of the most popular post-rock bands of the moment. These Texans, famous for their ecstatic glimmering sound, use a surprisingly standard setup of only drums, bass, and guitar. Their music was powerful and beautiful, that they were asked to do the score to the movie Friday Night Lights (a movie fittingly set in Texas). They’ve yet to release a bad album and are certainly recommended.
Sigur Rós are one of those bands that are seemingly loved and praised by everyone, whether it be the press, fellow artists, or listeners. It’s difficult to think of many bands that make music as beautiful and lush, yet so unique and strange as Sigur Rós. Quite honestly, they’re one of my all-time favorite bands. It’s likely that you’ve already heard Sigur Rós without knowing it, they were featured in the films Vanilla Sky and The Life Aquatic for example. This Icelandic band is famous for making incredibly dense and lush sound scapes, and particularly for their lead singer’s vocal delivery. His delicate falsetto makes Icelandic and “Hopelandic” (a made up form of gibberish he frequently uses in his lyrics) an absolute thrill to listen to. Their sophomore effort, ‘Ágætis Byrjun’, was the album that put them the map. It seemed like they could do no wrong, receiving stellar review after stellar review from the press, landing Radiohead’s seal of approval as their opener on tour, and topping countless year-end lists (deservedly so in my opinion). ‘Ágætis Byrjun’ was followed by ‘()’, an album with no title and no song titles, it had no lyrics and was completely sung in “Hopelandic”. Last year Sigur Rós released ‘Takk…’, an album I consider to be their second masterpiece. Everyone should check out Sigur Rós, they’re legitimately the kind of band that will, as Garden State stated, change your life.
Other notable bands have helped take post-rock in new directions. Godspeed You! Black Emperor has provided true orchestral type arrangements and sounds, 65daysofstatic have pushed further into the electronic aspect, and bands like Hope of the States, The Album Leaf, Wilderness, and Broken Social Scene have taken elements from the genre and incorporated it into a much more accessible and popish style.
They have some songs up for free download on their website: http://www.wevsdeath.nl/
Awesome Pinball Wizard, I've wanted to get some Eluvium too.
Just ten posts before yours is a good one by u2popmofo that should be enlightening.
