The Aurochs, the debut album from already-prolific New Zealand post-metal outfit Thousand Limbs, is a big undertaking. Inspired by Kakuan Shien’s Ten Ox-herding Pictures, each of the 10 songs is based on a woodcutting from the aforementioned work. Told strictly through music and without lyrics or vocals, The Aurochs is sonically huge, inspired in equal parts by Earth, Neurosis and Bongripper. “It’s a sonic interpretation of a perpetual cycle of disconnection and reconnection with a spiritual practice,” guitarist Patrick Gray tells Decibel. “The woodcuts act as an extra-musical g ..read more

Post-metal powerhouse O ZORN! will release its profoundly introspective album Vermillion Haze on March 15 via Hard Drugs/Seeing Red Records. Beyond the glitz of Los Angeles, the band delves into the city’s darker, chaotic underbelly, magnified by the pandemic’s aftermath. Fronted by the charismatic Bill Kielty and backed by a formidable lineup, O ZORN! crafts a sound that captures the essence of a dystopian reality, echoing the struggles of addiction, loss, and resilience. Their lead single, “Never Saw It Coming,” is a raw tribute to the unseen battles of mental illness and ..read more

Spoiler alert: this new Kinghorn song rules. Hailing from Portland, the post-metal outfit released their self-titled first full-length in 2021; though it went underheard, it established a strong foundation for the amp-worshipping trio. They’re all geared up to release next record Empty Handed, which is scheduled for an April 2024 release. Following in a similar vein to post-metal stalwarts Neurosis and The Ocean, or new(er)comers to the genre like YLVA, Kinghorn are heavy on the atmosphere, using drawn-out chords and pounding, almost tribal, drums to set a mood that grows f ..read more

Philadelphia’s Fragile Body takes post-metal and does the unthinkable–rather than letting the music meander and grow slowly, their debut single “Anhedonia” takes the famously bloated style and compacts it, making it sleek and digestible. Ideal for multiple listens in one sitting rather than post-metal’s multi-session marathoning, “Anhedonia'”s sub-three-minute length captures the genre’s highlights–the build-ups, the post-rock tendencies, the sludge-informed heaviness, and the slow-burn intensity–without being overwrought, too long, or over-verbose. This is the next step in post-metal; those w ..read more

In the most literal definition of the word, autofagia means “self-eating” or “self-devourment.” So it is with some trepidation we reveal this new video, “Autofagia,” by Danish post-metal noise lords Kollapse. Actually, it turns out that this is a totally safe for work performance video of the trio doing nothing more than bashing the hell out of their instruments and neither consuming themselves nor others. The intensity of the track—a crushing, lurching behemoth that invokes late ’80s NYC scum/noise rock, a la Unsane and Helmet—certainly matches the ugly lyrical subject matter, though. The sim ..read more

Truthfully, the co-nerds that run this column are not the biggest fans of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Having played it somewhere around its initial release over a decade ago when the game’s buzz was at its peak, our interest in other genres and collective lack of experience with the series left us feeling like we were missing… something. After speaking with today’s player character Serena Cherry—frontwoman of UK post-metal band Svalbard—we can’t help but wonder if the world of Skyrim warrants a revisit. With equal parts excitement and eloquence while beaming from ear to ear the entire duratio ..read more

Besra give us a peak into their forthcoming full-length, Transitions, out September 29 via Suicide Records. Check it out with us first. Drummer Ville Kaisla says about the album: “Transitions revolves around confronting the complexities of human behavior and the tumultuous landscapes we create—both in our social behavior and to the world around us. Only change is constant, and often painful–whether it’s about the world situation, human relationships, your daily state of mind, or even our band’s musical development. The oldest song on the album is over five years old, and the freshest one was c ..read more

If you head north from New York’s Big Apple, you can travel along the Hudson River until the city is a distant memory. The Hudson Valley is rich with wildlife and trees. Every year the foliage blooms with color, then withers as winter approaches. But even when the days are cold and at their shortest, rebirth is just a season change away. Inherus formed in that setting in 2018, uniting Brian Harrigan (Grid, Swallow the Ocean), Andrew Vogt (Lotus Thief, Swallow the Ocean), and Anthony Diblasi (ex-Witchkiss). Once Beth Gladding (Forlesen, Lotus Thief) joined the Inherus coven, the project found t ..read more

A little history before the unveiling of the brand new tune, “Shattered Generation,” from Sleep Maps. Multi-instrumentalist Ben Kaplan is the creative force behind this post-metal project originally based in NYC, and dating back to the early ’10s, he’s issued four previous instrumental full-lengths. For album number five, Reclaim Chaos, Kaplan has relocated to Northern California, added vocalist David Kegg and guitarist Brian Horn and injected a heavier, more malevolent—perhaps, death metal-inspired—element to his music. “Shattered Generation” embodies that transformation with its spacious, ar ..read more

A lot of bands just kind of do their thing—no label, no PR push, no pay-to-play on websites of dubious ethical character for a single goddamn song premiere. It’s often unclear if these bands want more for themselves or their only option is DIY or and die. We try our best to document the underground via columns in the magazine like Through a Speaker Rumbly, Throw Me a Frickin’ Bone and Vicious Circles, but no one’s sieve is big enough to save all the hidden gems from tumbling into the abyss. For the first 13 years of their existence, L.A.-based four-piece Iress have been among the unjustly anon ..read more