It's now been over five years since I first heard and review my first Post Rock/Math Rock album. In that time I have gotten to know the Post Rock/Math Rock subgenre pretty well. I now find it hard to issue five star "masterpiece" status to anything in this subgenre. This musical form and sound is just too beaten down, too overdone, too over-explored. The music just becomes so overlapping and redundant. Even the (few) albums that use vocals prominently (e.g. Slint, Bark Psychosis, Sigur Rós, Oceansize, Ulver, Matryoshka, Toe, Autumn Chorus, Rhys Marsh, Midas Fall, Swans) often fall into patterns of almost nauseating predictability and repetition. I've heard a few bands that "surprise" me and lure me into their magic for a while. But all too soon it seems I am running for something else, something more . . . alive!---to another subgenre of music. Still, there are some great songs I have heard and to which I thoroughly enjoy returning to from the Post Rock/Math Rock subgenre of music. Here are some:
Appleseed Cast, The - "The Road West"
Autumn Chorus - "Thief"
Autumn Chorus - "Three Jumps the Devil"
Bark Psychosis - "Big Shot"
Bark Psychosis - "Fingerspit"
Bark Psychosis - "400 Winters"
Bark Psychosis - "Lazarus"
Bark Psychosis - "Pendulum"Battlestations - "Comrade / The Way We Grieve"
Battlestations - "Prologue: Nature Morte / You're Not Welcome Here"
Caspian - "Epochs in Dmaj"
Caspian - "Ghosts of the Garden City"
Cicada - "Diving Into Pacific Ocean"
Cicada - "Drowning in the Fog of Yours"
Cicada - "Fading Affection"
Cicada - "Farewell (in a pretentious way)"
Cicada - "Finally ... We're Still Together"
Cicada - "Lake's End"
Cicada - "Light Shining Through the Sea"
Cicada - "No Words"
Cicada - "Rolling Waves"
Collapse Under The Empire - "Beware/Lost"
Collapse Under The Empire - "The Sirens Sound"
Daturah - "Hybrisma"
Evpatoria Report, The - "C.C.S. Logbook"
Future Kings of England, The - "Watcher, Part 1"
Gifts from Enola - "Alogoas"
God Is An Astronaut - "Suicide by Star"
Hammock - "Dust Is The Devil's Snow"
Magyar Posse - "European Lover/Random Avenger"
Magyar Posse - "Sudden Death"
Magyar Posse - "Whirlpool of Terror and Tension"
Maserati - "Monoliths"Matryoshka - "Slowsnow"
Midas Fall - "BPD"
Midas Fall - "Our World Recedes"
Midas Fall - "The Unravelling King"
Midas Fall - "Wilderness"
Mono - "Are You There?"
Mono - "Cyclone"
Mono - "Elysian Castles"
Mono - "Katana"
Monobody - "Country Doctor"My Education - "Lust"
Monobody - "Gilgamesh (R-Texas)"
Monobody - "Lifeguard of a Helpless Body"
My Education - "A Man Alone"
My Education - "Sunrise"
Red Sparowes - "The Illusions of Order"
Russian Circles - "Enter"
Sigur Rós - "Milano"
Sigur Ros - "Ny Batteri"
Sigur Rós - "Svefn-G-Englar"
Sigur Rós - "Untitled #3 (Samskeyti)"
Sigur Rós - "Untitled #8 ((Popplagið)"
sleepmakeswaves - "A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun"
sleepmakeswaves - "Your Time Will Come Again"
Sunwrae -"Autumn Never Fall"
Sunwrae - "Chinoook Winds"
Swans - "Mother of the World"
Swans - "The Avatar"
Swans - "The Seer"
Tristeza - "City of the Future"
Toe - "After Image"
Toe - "Esoteric"
Toe - "Goodbye"
Ulver - "All the Love"
Ulver - "EOS"
Ulver - "What Happened"
9/10 songs (in no particular order):
Monobody - "I Heard them on the Harbor"
Monobody - "Curry Courier Career"
Monobody - "Exformation"
Mono - "The Last Dawn"
Sigur Rós - "Flugufrelsarinn"
Sigur Rós - "Starálfur"
Bark Psychosis - "Loom"
Midas Fall - "Carnival Song"
Midas Fall - "The Moon and the Shine"
Swans - "The Apostate"
Swans - "Lunacy"
Battlestations - "Breaking Bad News/The Faces We Remember"
Red Sparowes - "Giving Birth to Imagined Saviors"
Red Sparowes - "A Hail of Bombs"
Mono - "Silent Flight, Sleeping Dawn" (6:00)
Mono - "Pure as Snow (Trails of the Winter Storm)" (11:26)
The Future Kings of England - "A Face of Crumpled Linen"
The Future Kings of England - "The Globe Inn"
The Future Kings of England - "A Spectacle of Scarecrow"
sleepmakeswaves - "now we rise and we are everywhere"
sleepmakeswaves - "and so we destroyed everything"
sleepmakeswaves - "in limb and joints"
sleepmakeswaves - "our time is short but your watch is slow"
sleepmakeswaves - "we like you when you're awkward""Watcher Part 1"
sleepmakeswaves - "to you they are birds, to me they are voices in the forest"
Cicada - "Sunshine Smile"
Cicada - "Breakaway"
Collapse Under The Empire - "A Different Complexion"
Gifts from Enola - "Lionize"
Gifts from Enola - "Dime and Suture"
Gifts from Enola - "Grime and Glass"
My Education - "Sunset"
My Education - "Oars"
Cicada - "Till the Day We Meet"
Appleseed Cast - "As the Little Things go"
Appleseed Cast - "Raise the Sails"
Applessed Cast - "An Army of Fireflies"
Toe - "Long Tomorrow"
Toe - "Last Night"
Daturah - "(Reverie) 9"
This Will Destroy You - "They Move on Tracks of Never-ending Light" (6:56)
This Will Destroy You - "Villa del Refugio" (7:06)
Russian Circles - "Carpe"
Russian Circles - "You Already Did"
The Future Kings of England - "October Moth"
Sigur Rós - "Svo Hljótt"
My Education - "Dirty Hands"
Bark Psychosis - "Miss Abuse"
Explosions in the Sky
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Red Sparowes - "The Great Leap Forward Poured Down Upon Us One Day Like A Mighty Storm Suddenly And Furiously Blinding Our Senses" (8:10) (9/10)
Red Sparowes - 4. "A Message Of Avarice Rained Down And Carried Us Away To False Dreams Of Endless Riches" (7:56) (9/10)
Red Sparowes - 7. "Millions Starved And Became Skinnier And Skinnier While Our Leaders Became Fatter And Fatter" (10:01) (9/10)
Red Sparowes - 8. "Finally As That Blazing Sun Shone Down Upon Us Did We Know That True Enemy Was The Voice Of Blind Idolatry; And Only Then Did We Begin To Think For Ourselves" (8:03) (9/10)The American Dollar - "Somnambulance"
Cicada - "Seashore of Endless Worlds"
Bark Psychosis - "Inqb8tor"
Bark Psychosis - "Shapeshifitng"
My Education - "Lust"
My Education - "deep cut"
My Education - "crime story"
The Mercury Program - "Sultans of El Sur"
The Mercury Program - "Arrived/Departed"
Sleepmakeswaves - "Emergent"
Clint Mansell - "The Last Man"
Clint Mansell- "Death Is the Road to Awe"
Magyar Posse - "Intercontinental Hustle"
Magyar Posse - "One by One"
Daturah - "Deep B Flat"
Ulver - "Let the Children Go"
Toe - "ラストナイト (Album Version)"
Tristeza - "En nuestro desafio"
Mono - "Flames Before the Cold Mountain"
Sleepmakeswaves - "Traced in Constellations"
Sleepmakeswaves - "Something Like Avalanches"
Sleepmakeswaves - "Great Northern"
Marconi Union - "Weightless"
Don Caballero - "The Peter Criss Jazz"
Don Caballero - "Ones All Over the Place"
Don Caballero - "Details on How to Get Iceman On Your License Plate"
The Samuel Jackson Five - "Race to the Self-Destruct Button"
If These Trees Could Talk - "Rebuilding the Temple of Artemis"
Gregor Samsa - "The Adolescent"
Long Distance Calling - "Into the Black Wide Open"
Sennen - "Where Light Gets In"
The Future Kings of England - "10:66"
The Evpatoria Report - "Dipole Experiment"
Bark Psychosis - "Eyes and Smiles"
Tortoise - "Suspension Bridge at Iguaza Falls"
Tortoise - "Glass Museum"
God Is an Astronaut - "Forever Lost"
God Is an Astronaut - "Dust and Echoes"
Favorite Post Rock Albums
1. STEREOLAB Dots and Loops
2. MAGYAR POSSE Random Avenger
3. BARK PSYCHOSIS ///Codename: Dustsucker
4. ULVER Shadows of the Sun
5. CICADA Light Shining Through the Sea
6. CICADA Over the Sea/Under the Water
7. SIGUR RÓS ( )
8. MONO The Last Dawn
9. BATTLESTATIONS The Extent of Damage
10. GIFTS FROM ENOLA Gifts from Enola
11. SLEEPMAKESWAVES ...and then we destroyed everything...
12. SIGUR RÓS Ágætus Byrjun
13. BATTLESTATIONS In a Cold Embrace
14. TOE. For Long Tomorrow
15. MY EDUCATION Sunrise
16. SUNWRAE Autumn Never Fall
17. DATURAH Reverie
18. MIDAS FALL Wilderness
19. GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennae to the Sky
20. THE EVPATORIA REPORT Golevka
21. LIS ER STILLE Collibro
22. GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT All Is Violent, All Is Bright
23. MONOBODY Monobody
24. BARK PSYCHOSIS Hex
25. SWANS The Seer
26. THE APPLESEED CAST Sagarmatha
27. EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place
28. HAMMOCK Chasing After Shadows . . . Living with the Ghosts
29. COLLAPSE UNDER THE EMPIRE The Sirens Sound
30. STEREOLAB Sound-Dust
31. ULVER ATV
32. AUTUMN CHORUS Village to the Vale
33. MASERATI Inventions for the New Season
34. SIGUR ROS Takk...
35. CASPIAN Tertia
36. CICADA Pieces
37. RED SPAROWES The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer
38. MY EDUCATION Italian
39. MATROYSHKA Zatracenie
40. FLOORIAN What the Buzzing
MASERATI Passages
RED SPAROWES Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun
MY EDUCATION 5 Popes
THE FUTURE KINGS OF ENGLAND The Future Kings of England
TOE. Hear You
THE FUTURE KINGS OF ENGLAND Who Is This Who Is Coming?
RUSSIAN CIRCLES Enter
DO MAKE SAY THINK
65DAYSOFSTATIC One Time for All Time
MONO You Are There
TRISTEZA
DON CABALLERO American Don
DON CABALLERO II
MOGWAI
THE ALBUM LEAF
SENNEN
TORTOISE
THE AMERICAN DOLLAR
THE MERCURY PROGRAM
IF THESE TREES COULD TALK
FOLLOWED BY GHOSTS
BOARDS OF CANADA
LONG DISTANCE CALLING
I HEAR SIRENS
THE SAMUEL JACKSON FIVE
