Pelican: What We All Come to Need

Artist: Pelican
Album: What We All Come to Need
Date Released: October 27, 2009
Genre: post-rock, post-metal, instrumental rock
Rating: 8.3

Pyramids: Pyramids With Nadja

Artist: Pyramids
Album: Pyramids with Nadja
Date Released: October 27, 2009
Genre: metal, post-metal, alt-metal, experimental, avant-garde metal, ambient, minimalism
Rating: 8.4

Pyramids with Nadja (streaming audio available) is a massive collaborative effort between Pyramids, Nadja and a number of other musicians. All members of Pyramids (f. coloccia, m. dean, m. kraig, r. loren, d. william) and Nadja (Aidan Baker & Leah Buckereff) perform on all four tracks on the record.

In addition to this, Pyramids with Nadja also features Simon Raymonde of Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil (performs bass on track one and four), Albin Julius of Der Blutharsch (performs vocals on track four), Chris Simpson of Mineral (performs vocals on track two), Colin Marston of Dysrhythmia and Behold the Arctopus (co-produced/engineered track one) and James Plotkin of Khanate, Khlyst, O.L.D. Phantomsmasher (mixed and mastered the entire album).

As the number of contributors would suggest, the music on Pyramids with Nadja is a remarkable integration of diverse sonic influences, a palate that includes ambient, industrial, shoe-gaze, and experimental/minimalist metal. While Pyramids and Nadja dominate the album, there's no question that this is a product of many musical minds.

The album itself consists of four long-play tracks that weave in and out of the listener's conscious awareness. Pyramids with Nadja is about slowly morphing texture, mood, and walls of soundscapes; it's a very 'visual' album in this sense. Remarkably, despite the minimalism and atmospheric bliss-outs, the album contains a definite melodic quality. Without a doubt, this is one of the most original and remarkable albums of the year.

Om: God is Good

Artist: Om
Album: God is Good
Date Released: March 2009
Genre: stoner metal, minimalist metal, psychedelic rock, post-metal
Rating: 7.1

Om is a duo formed in 2003 by the rhythm section of the disbanded stoner doom metal band Sleep. God is Good is their fourth studio album and was recorded at Electrical Audio by Steve Albini. It's the first studio album by Om to feature the new drummer Emil Amos of Grails.

Om's music is slow and droning and at times similar in structure to Tibetan chanting. On God is Good, the album's four tracks feature the drawn-out wailings of sitar, tamboura, steady tappings of the ride cymbal and mantra-like vocal stylings. The arrangements are sparse and spacious. There is no rushing here; the band takes their time to express meditative and heavy music. Fans of Sun O))) and Earth will feel right at home with Om.

Irepress: Sol Eye See I

Artist: Irepress
Album: Sol Eye See I
Date Released: February 17, 2009
Genre: post-rock, post-metal, progressive, experimental
Rating: 7.6

Hailing from Massachusetts, Irepress have released Sol Eye See I, the follow-up to their 2007 debut, Samus Octology. Irepress play an extremely challenging and proficient brand of post-rock that borders on everything from post-metal through to jazz-fusion, math-rock and sludge. Unsurprisingly, the tracks themselves on Sol Eye See I are as frenetic and chaotic as these descriptions would imply.

The chug-a-chug metal riffs are often interspersed with washes of fuzzy guitar soundscapes, frenetic drumming and the electric guitar pickings that are characteristic of the post-rock genre. The tracks are all over the map, frequently starting and stopping on a dime. This isn't stuff you play in the background -- it commands attention and lots of patience.

Irepress is not for everyone, but listeners looking for something a bit different and daring will adore this album.

Russian Circles: Geneva

Artist: Russian Circles
Album: Geneva
Date Released: October 20, 2009
Genre: post-rock, post-metal, progressive rock
Rating: 8.7

Geneva is the third full-length album by the Chicago post-rock three-piece, Russian Circles. This album comes only one year after their excellent and transitionary Station, and it finds the band continuing to explore new sonic spaces and possibilities.

Geneva features a broader arrangement than their first two releases, namely the addition of cello (Allison Chesley) and violin (Susan Voelz). The tracks are still epic and fiery, as exemplified by the goose-bump inducing "When the Mountain Comes to Muhammad" -- but now, with the added emphasis on more nuanced pacing and song-progression, the band is able to create sprawling and often meditative tracks.

Russian Circles, once regarded as being purely about the post-metal, is clearly moving away from sheer heaviness and the cliched progressions that have often marred the genre. Sounding much less like Pelican and more like Evpatoria Report, the band is continuing to evolve. And with Geneva, Russian Circles have produced their most realized work to date.

Sunn O))): Monoliths and Dimensions

Artist: Sunn O)))
Album: Monoliths and Dimensions
Date Released: May 26, 2009
Genre: doom metal, post-metal, experimental rock/metal, noise, avant-garde
Rating: 8.6

Review: Sunn O)))'s Monoliths and Dimensions features four epically minimalistic and dreary tracks that are darkened by the band's characteristic guitar drones, chanting and grumbling, church bells, choirs and much, much more. It's hard to pinpoint an exact genre for this band -- a band whose influences range from John Cage through to the black metal scene and Japanese thrashers Boris.

On Monoliths and Dimensions, Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley have brought in a number of guests and collaborators, including vocalist Attila Csihar, Ambarchi, Earth's Dylan Carlson, trombonists Julian Priester and the Deep Listening Band's Stuart Dempster, trumpeter Cuong Vu, multi-instrumentalist Steve Moore, male and female choirs, reed and wind players, and violist Eyvind Kang as an arranger.

Monoliths and Dimensions is not for the feint of heart; its goose-bump inducing drones and creepiness will most likely be appreciated by fans of doom and black metal, but anyone with an open mind for the experimental and minimalistic will appreciate this remarkable and intricately detailed effort.

Nadja & A Storm of Light: Primitive North [Split]

Artist: Nadja & A Storm of Light
Album: Primitive North [Split]
Date Released: March 3, 2009
Genre: post-metal, post-rock, doom metal, sludge metal
Rating: 7.4

Review: Primitive North is a split CD from Toronto's Nadja and Brooklyn's A Storm of Light (featuring members of Red Sparowes, Tombs, Unsane and Satanized). Each band contributes by remixing and interweaving elements from both, creating apocalyptic waves of doomy fuzzes and drones. Primitive North is intensely heavy and agonizingly slow -- not for the feint of heart.

Bloodhorse: Horizoner

Artist: Bloodhorse
Album: Horizoner
Date Released: May 26, 2009
Genre: sludge metal, post-metal, stoner metal
Rating: 8.3

Review: Bloodhorse weaves together a fantastic mix of metal sub-genres, touching upon everything from Black Sabbath right through to Kyuss, Hellhammer, Hawkwind, High on Fire and Raised Fist. Those searching for experimental and post-metal qualities will also find what they're looking for. Horizoner thunders.

Isis: Wavering Radiant

Artist: Isis
Album: Wavering Radiant
Date Released: April 21, 2009
Genre: post-metal, alternative metal
Rating: 8.8

Review:

Along with Neurosis, California's Isis have firmly established themselves as giants of the post-metal genre. With such albums under their belts as Oceanic (2002) and In the Absence of Truth (2006), Isis is a band that could easily settle and regress into producing formulaic records while striving for greater commercial appeal. But as Wavering Radiant indicates, these guys have no interest in taking the easy route to a comfortable career.

True to the spirit of the post-metal genre, Isis continues to experiment with song structure, tone and the complex interplay between melody and instrumentation; the strength and beauty of each track on Wavering Radiant is teasingly revealed with great care and subtlety.

Indeed, "care" and "subtlety" are not words that are traditionally associated with heavy music -- but that's what makes the post-metal genre so interesting and inherently listenable. All the metal cliches are stripped away in favor of a minimalistic and subdued approach, but never at the expense of heaviness and aggression. Likewise, Wavering Radiant's inspirational touches color the tracks in a non-obvious way; its songs merely hint at the influences of such bands as Animals era Pink Floyd, post-metal brothers Neurosis and Jesu, Aereogramme, and Tool (whose Adam Jones makes a guest appearance).

The album's mood is typically bleak, but the punchy melodies and shimmering production provide a dynamism that lifts the album beyond the usual grey tones. Aaaron Turner's vocals have never sounded more severe and ferocious, and the interplay between the drums, bass and rhythm guitars are a stunning stand-out.

Wavering Radiant is an album that re-invents itself with each passing listen. It will appeal to metal die-hards as much as it will to those with proggish and post-rock sensibilities. Truly one of the best albums of 2009.

Reviewed by George Dvorsky.

Tombs: Winter Hours

Artist: Tombs
Album: Winterhours
Date Released: February 17, 2009
Genre: metal, post-metal
Rating: 8.1

Review: Brooklyn's Tombs intertwine traditional metal with hints of post-metal and even some black metal. Post-black metal, anyone?