Every now and then, a record comes along that doesn't just meet your expectations for progressive and atmospheric post-metal, it completely redraws the boundary lines of what you thought the genre was capable of doing.
Austrian quartet Hills Like White Lions have been quietly honing their craft over two previous conceptual records, but their third full-length, Canary, is an astonishing, monumental achievement.
In an era where so many bands confuse sheer volume with sonic weight, this album lands with an architectural grandeur that feels truly galactic.
At its core, Canary is an ambitious coming-of-age concept album set against the vast, inhospitable canvas of deep space. Science-fiction allegories about human growth and personal trauma can easily collapse under their own pretension in lesser hands, but here, the narrative focus is laser-sharp.
The band has introduced shouted, harsher vocals for the first time in their history to reflect the terrifying, disorienting horrors faced by the protagonist, and that emotional desperation grounds every single movement in genuine human stakes.
The record opens with the title track, Canary, a slow-burning masterclass in atmospheric tension that immediately shows off the ridiculous depth of Norbert Leitner’s production.
The stereo field is jaw-droppingly expansive; instruments occupy distinct, physical three-dimensional spaces, allowing synths and delicate guitar figures to wrap around your head before the heavy rhythm section drops. It transitions seamlessly into Time Dilation, which pushes the polyrhythmic dynamic while maintaining an effortless, soaring melodic throughline.
What makes Canary such a triumph is how technique always bows to songwriting. Florian Wagner’s guitar tone is pristine, retaining immense low-end punch without ever turning to mud, and sparkling with clarity during complex, dense runs.
Drummer Hannes Lettner and bassist Alexander Augustin give the heavy passages a tectonic, chest-rattling gravity, while Reinhard Farnberger’s synths feel like living, breathing atmospheric elements rather than decorative window dressing.
The guest appearances across the record are integrated with surgical brilliance. On Cosmic Loss, Pipi Gogerl adds haunting, ethereal clean textures that contrast gorgeously with the creeping weight of the riffs.
Then comes Liminal Summer, where David Eklatanz of Heretoir lends his unmistakable post-black metal venom, elevating the track into a scorching, cathartic storm. These aren't just featured names slapped on a tracklist for internet clout; they expand an already majestic sonic tapestry.
The back half is where the emotional payload hits maximum velocity. Blown Away surges with kinetic energy, setting up And Again arguably the emotional centrepiece of the entire album.
As the narrative reaches its fever pitch, the raw, impassioned shouts push through the mix with heartbreaking power, backed by guitar crescendos that feel designed to split open the firmament.
By the time the sprawling, elegiac closer Iron Lung slowly builds to its transcendent, crushing conclusion, you are left sitting in absolute stunned silence.
Canary is an utter masterpiece of modern post-metal. It achieves what benchmark records like Opeth’s Ghost Reveries or Cult of Luna’s Mariner did in their prime: it creates an entirely immersive world where virtuosity and raw, vulnerable storytelling exist in perfect harmony.
It demands to be experienced through the finest set of headphones you own, turned up loud, and taken in from start to finish. An instant, undeniable classic. This one was a stop review, buy physical album moment. 10/10
Shy, Low – Purity Spiral (Pelagic Records)
Instrumental records are always a bit of a high-wire act for me.
Without a vocalist at the centre of the frame anchoring the emotional stakes, it’s remarkably easy for a band to drift off into background music, the sort of polite, meandering post-rock that noodles along pleasantly enough without ever grabbing you by the collar.
To really stick, an instrumental heavy record has to construct tangible physical spaces, weave deep cinematic textures, and hit with genuine dynamic violence. On their fourth full-length, Purity Spiral, Richmond, Virginia quintet Shy, Low do exactly that.
Released once again via Pelagic Records (and a shout out to them here as I’m finding so much amazing stuff on this label), the album wastes zero time establishing its formidable sonic architecture.
The record opens with Grace, a five-and-a-half-minute masterclass in controlled suspense. Rather than relying on tired, predictable build-to-crescendo formulas, Shy, Low build tension through intricate polyrhythms and sparkling, layered guitar lines that wrap around each other before detonating into suffocating, earth-moving heaviness.
It flows seamlessly into The Bloat, which lands with a jagged, post-metal crunch reminiscent of Pelican or Russian Circles, anchored by Dylan Partridge’s thunderous, bone-shaking drum work.
What keeps Purity Spiral so completely gripping across its forty-seven-minute runtime is the incredible depth and physical texture of the arrangements.
Guitarists Zak Bryant, Gregg Peterson, and Kai Zamora work not as competitive lead players, but as a three-headed atmospheric beast interweaving gossamer-thin clean tones, dark industrial tremolos, and crushing walls of distorted low-end.
On Palmistry, that chemistry reaches a dazzling peak, gracefully navigating melancholic lulls, unexpected keyboard interludes, and ferocious, churning riffs that rattle right through your ribs.
After the brief, fiery breather of Burning Fields, the band unleashes what is arguably the most imposing stretch of their career. The Charging, Brazen Bull is an absolute monster of a track, marching forward with hypnotic, dread-soaked momentum before collapsing into pure, kinetic catharsis.
The nine-minute title track, Purity Spiral, stretches their compositional ambitions even further, drifting through eerie, cavernous ambient depths before locking into a colossal, tectonic groove that feels like a mountainside sliding into the sea.
By the time the sprawling, eight-minute finale Greenwood slowly dissipates into delicate guitar echoes and resonant feedback, you're left with the distinct impression of having survived a physical transit.
Pulling off an instrumental record that demands your undivided attention from start to finish is no small feat, but Shy, Low have crafted a richly detailed, emotionally resonant, and punishingly heavy experience.
If you think instrumental metal has nowhere left to go, Purity Spiral will gladly prove you wrong. An outstanding piece of work. 9/10
Caspian – Caspian (Wax Bodega)
When an instrumental post-rock band crosses the twenty-year milestone, the pressure of reinvention can become an albatross around their neck.
The genre is notorious for backing artists into corners, you either spend your time chasing increasingly convoluted sonic gimmicks to prove you're still "progressive," or you surrender to tired, formulaic crescendos that fade into polite background ambience.
Massachusetts quintet Caspian have spent two decades pushing at those boundaries, but on their sixth full-length and debut for Wax Bodega, they make an audacious choice: they stop trying to over-complicate things and simply trust what made them formidable in the first place.
Arriving six years after 2020’s On Circles, a record dropped right into the teeth of global chaos that left the band navigating what they candidly termed collective PTSD, Caspian feels like a profound exhale.
With members now scattered across four different US states, the months of communal basement woodshedding that forged classics like Dust and Disquiet were impossible.
Heading into the studio with producer Brett Romnes (Hot Mulligan, The Movielife), the band had to trust their first instincts. That enforced brevity has paid massive dividends; stripped of overthinking, this self-titled collection clocks in at a lean thirty-nine minutes across six tracks, and there isn't an ounce of wasted motion.
The album opens with Hiraeth, setting the tone with acoustic guitar arpeggios that intertwine with soaring violin, viola, and cello. It doesn't rush into a theatrical crescendo; it breathes, allowing the hypnotic, circular melody to expand naturally before bleeding seamlessly into Far Country.
Here, Calvin Joss resurrects an old feedback pedal technique from their Waking Season era, sending the guitars splintering into glorious, fuzz-edged distortion that feels beautifully imperfect and thoroughly alive.
The centrepiece of the first half, however, is Remain. Anchored in the same key to create an unbroken nineteen-minute transit with the opening two cuts, it is a masterclass in slow-burning tension and dynamic release.
Delicate piano keys and subtle side-stick percussion simmer before erupting into colossal, multi-tracked guitar swells that roll in like a thunderstorm off the Atlantic coast, only to retreat and surge again with even greater physical force.
When Caspian want to bare their teeth, they do so with genuine venom. A Great Fire, named with a nod to the Great Boston Fire of 1872 that adorns the album's cover art, rattles right through your ribs. Jani Zubkovs’ grimy, low-slung bassline paves the way for chugging, buzzsaw guitar riffs and serpentine leads, while drummer Justin Forrest beats the absolute tar out of his kit.
Forrest doesn't just keep time; he conducts with thunder, giving the heavy passages a tectonic punch that reminds you Caspian can easily out-muscle most metalcore outfits when they step on the pedals.
Down the back stretch, the propulsive No One Left To Tell locks into a driving tremolo hook layered with subtle vocoder textures, before the elegiac Waltz For The End brings the curtain down. Written in barely half an hour, it’s a graceful, 3/4-time meditation that leaves you sitting in reverent quiet as the final chord echoes away.
Caspian doesn't bother trying to rewrite the post-rock rulebook from scratch, nor does it need to. By getting out of their own way and embracing the core DNA they've honed over two decades, Caspian have crafted an emotionally resonant, gorgeously textured, and punishingly heavy record that sits comfortably alongside their finest work.
An essential listen. 8/10
Netherwilds – Peasant Rising (King Volume Records)
Just when you think heavy music has completely exhausted its capacity for strange conceptual diversions, something lands on your desk that completely defies conventional categorization.
Hailing from Canada, Netherwilds is the wildly eccentric brainchild of David Monks (former frontman of 2000s indie-rock staples Tokyo Police Club).
Trading in catchy garage-pop hooks for chainmail, pitchforks, and theatrical mud-slinging, Monks has plunged headfirst into the self-proclaimed realm of "peasant metal." The result is Peasant Rising, a mammoth twenty-two-track medieval narrative that walks the razor's edge between avant-garde hardcore lunacy and elaborate audio play.
I have to admit, Netherwilds was completely off my radar until this landed in front of me, and an initial glance at that twenty-two-song track list definitely had me raising an eyebrow. But once you press play, the blueprint reveals itself: roughly half of these tracks aren't full songs at all, but brisk, atmospheric scene-setters dubbed "Scrolls."
Across vignettes like Scroll I: The Fair, Scroll II: The Mud Mages, and Scroll IV: The Dungeon, Monks acts as narrator, world-builder, and character actor, spinning an unbroken yarn of feudal oppression, dungeon escapes, wicker siege warfare, and a stolen goat.
It’s an exercise in sheer storytelling commitment that owes as much to tabletop role-playing games and radio comedy as it does to extreme music.
When Netherwilds actually plug in and let the metal fly, there's surprising bite beneath the absurd aesthetic. The opening title track, Peasant Rising, kicks the barn doors open before spilling straight into Peasant Pit and Helm Yeah, pairing thrashy, punk-fuelled riffs with gang-shouted hooks that sound like Refused or early System Of A Down set loose in a 14th-century tavern.
Monks’ vocal delivery is a total chameleon act throughout, bouncing between manic theatrical barks, gravelly shouts, and surprisingly vulnerable clean singing.
The middle chapter holds plenty of heavy charm. Siege Proof Hovel and Dungeon Song lean into jagged mathcore dissonance and bouncy hardcore stomps, while Farmer's Armoury and The Fall use the feudal uprising as a tongue-in-cheek allegory for modern working-class burnout.
Meanwhile, cuts like Blight! and Wickermech deliver furious, blast-beat-adjacent explosions of pure kinetic chaos, culminating in the triumphant, ale-soaked charge of Return The Goat.
There's no denying that the band have gone completely all-in on the gimmick, and they execute the vision with remarkable technical polish and genuine enthusiasm.
Yet, stepping back from the sheer novelty of it all, it leaves you pondering the long-term staying power. By leaning so relentlessly into this hyper-specific medieval framework, Netherwilds have crafted arguably the most niche vein of heavy music this reviewer has ever encountered.
Does that make it bad? Not at all, the storytelling is clever, the riffs are punchy, and it puts an immediate smile on your face. But by turning the record into an interconnected narrative play full of recurring spoken skits, it naturally shrinks the audience and makes casual repeat listening a bit of a challenge once the punchlines are familiar.
Peasant Rising is mad as a box of frogs, wonderfully inventive, and played with zero fear of looking ridiculous. If you’re open to letting metal take a left-field detour into theatrical fantasy rebellion, it’s an entertaining trip that proves creativity in the underground knows no borders. 7/10
