Welcome back to the Ways of Exile! It’s been a tough few months around these parts so writing the blog had to take a back seat But we’re back with a two month roll over. As usual things are a bit intense musically but I guess that’s just to be expected at this point. So brace yourselves and let’s get stuck in.
We Lost the Sea
A Single Flower
Post Rock
The signal to noise ratio in post rock is getting worse day by day. There is a seemingly endless stream of bands picking up guitars and making some truly wallpaper music, so it always feels like a victory when a band that stands out comes along. Honestly though, It’s unfair to build WLtS like this, their Departure Songs album is rightly considered a post rock classic, but that came out nearly a decade ago at this point. That’s a very long time in music. Can they reach those heights again?
Starting off with a gentle middle eastern sounding riff, the opener, If They had Hearts slowly builds as the hypnotic drums pull you in before the distortion arrives. But it’s not your usual attack. The distortion layers up slowly, wrapping the song in fuzz before gently easies you down. And that’s all this album needs to swallow you whole.
A Dance with Death is as dramatic as that sounds, there’s a great attack on the guitars that opens up the track but again the band show a great understanding of song dynamics and tension, adding pressure exactly where needed. They also love a Huge Fucking Riff and that’s always something that’s close to my heart.
But it’s not all riffery. The Gloaming is a collaboration with Sophie Trudeau from Godspeed! Its strings and piano are a welcome change of tone as the band lead up to their epic closer.
Blood Will Have Blood is a towering climax to the album, with a hefty twenty seven minute run time. The original version of the review talked about how there is never any need for a track to be that long. I scrapped it after seeing the band play Blood Will Have Blood at Arctangent Festival and it was so good that I nearly yelled myself hoarse at the end of the set. So I’ll just say that this track is worth the investment of your time, because it’s actually great and sometimes I need to get over myself.
This is a fantastic piece of emotive post rock that evokes beauty just as much as it embraces its huge riffs. There’s a lot to dig into here, but if you just press play and let yourself drift along with the album’s ebb and flow you’ll find yourself lost in one of the best albums I’ve heard this year.
https://lynkify.in/song/a-dance-with-death/wN6hhiIL
Jehnny Beth
You Heartbreaker, You
Post punk / alt rock / kinda metal
Jehnny Beth is probably best known as the singer in the band Savages. This is her second solo album but somehow, it’s night and day from her debut. I’m not sure what lit a fire under her, but this album is filth and has grabbed me in a way her other work hasn’t.
You Heartbreaker, You does not mess around and goes for the throat straight out the gates. The opener, Broken Rib sounds like 90’s PJ Harvey writing a song for Around the Fur era Deftones. It’s the kind of thing that will make you sit up and pay attention.
But Jehnny isn’t one to stick to one sound, there are a lot of styles here. No Good for People has more than a little NIN flavour to it, while Obsession is a threatening, bass driven, alt rock monster. From Reality onwards things get heavy, with a punky / metal feel. The album was pretty raw up to this point, but for the next few tracks things get feral. High Resolution Sadness is just a white knuckle ride with its racing guitars and pounding drums as Jehnny delivers her best snarl of the album.
This is a bruising 30 minutes. It just gets in and gets out, bouncing between genres and generally burning everything to the ground. It’s as bracing as it is brilliant, so just turn it up and brace yourself, this is some cathartic fun.
https://lynkify.in/song/broken-rib/3H3Yfvno
The Eden House
Smoke & Mirrors + Other Ghosts
Chill out / Trip Hop / Goth
I feel let down by both my friends and the internet that I’d never heard of this band before. This is a remaster of Smoke & Mirrors, the band’s 2008 debut album and features most of the Fields of the Nephilim. In fairness to you all, this is a project started by Stephen Carey of This Burning Effigy, and has a large cast of guest members on the album, so you might have missed it. But still. I’m blaming you lot for me missing out on this band.
The most important thing to point out is this project is that it only has female vocalists, (members of All About Eve and Faith and the Muse) so if you are worried that there might be some guy growling over these songs, you can put your mind at ease. This album is the unusual (ish) crossover between trip hop / 90’s chill out music and Goth.
The album opener, To Believe in Something would be a classic Nephilim song, but having a female singer lightens the songs mood so much that you wouldn’t notice at first. All My Love is closer to chill out music and has some lovely John Barryesque strings, whereas, God’s Pride is pure 80’s moody indie. It also has a breakdown in it that is pure Dawnrazor. It’s glorious.
Later in the album the vibe changes and the band moves into a more relaxed mood. Reach Out is pure 90’s Trip Hop, while Iron in the Soul has a bass line that’s pure Massive Attack.
This re-release is the remastered two disc anniversary version of the album, and to be honest, disc two isn’t really essential, but the main album is a fantastic, moody chill out album, with that brilliant Nephilim feel to it. It’s probably an acquired taste but this is so good that it’s worth putting any preconceptions you might have about the band members aside and just diving in.
https://lynkify.in/song/to-believe-in-something-2025-remaster/tRGk7XFO
Leonov
Shape of Ash
Alt rock / Post metal / Doomgaze
Leonov’s last album was so good that it stormed its way into Ways of Exile’s 2023 albums of the year list, even though it had only been released for 3 weeks at the time of writing. So there was a lot of excitement in the build up to this ep’s release.
Whereas Leonov’s last album was more obviously post metal, there’s more of an alt rock feel here, mixed with some of that post metal heaviness and dash of doomgaze.
The opening track, Samaritan, has a fantastic drama to it, with an almost gothic feel. The singer, Tåran, has a captivating voice that draws in you in while the drums crash and the guitars crush, but somehow it feels delicate despite the heaviness of the song itself.
Bygg en Menneskekropp, features Norwegian folk singer Syvert Feed and the contrasting voices on this song really makes it stand out amongst the heavy guitar on the rest of the ep. The gentle interplay between the singers works perfectly and makes the song an ep highlight. The post rock / post metal only really comes out on the Shape of Ash as the song builds into a glorious outro finally letting the building momentum of the ep lose and the song soars.
Leonov have once again delivered an amazing release, showing that they are constantly growing and perfecting their sound. It’s great to get some new music from them now, rather than having to wait for another album.
https://lynkify.in/song/samaritan/CfQMYWOI
Hemelbestormer
The Radiant Veil
Post metal
After years of moaning about long songs, I think it may be time to just accept that post rock and post metal just roll that way and it’s either accept this or listen to something else. Looking at the run time for The Radiant Veil, the listener might just be tempted to skip the album. It’s sixty five minutes long, has five songs over eight minutes long and just looks like it’s going to be hard work. Luckily, looks can be deceiving.
The opener, Usil, is a slow burn. It unfurls gently, and around the half way mark the song kicks off as the drums race, adding a huge amount of energy to the proceedings. Mixing things up is something that Hemelbestormer does really well. This may be a post metal album, but it never feels like a generic one.
Tiur leans into black metal but never descends into blastbeats or screeching before pvioting into some languid post metal. Cel has a doomy Pelican feel to it, and has riffs that will shake your house, while Tinia is straight up post rock. The closer and album highlight, Satre has some great electronic flourishes that really makes the track stand out from the crowd.
There’s a lot to chew on here, this is a big hunk of metal to get your head around, but it’s never a chore, The Radiant Veil is as accessible as an album half its length, you just have to let go and lose yourself.
https://lynkify.in/song/satre/X9RmNAFP
Nerves
Iarmhaireacht
Post punk / Noise rock
Nerves are slowly making a name for themselves as one of the loudest and most abrasive Irish bands out there and this new EP is only going to help solidify that reputation. Iarmhaireacht translates as “the loneliness felt at cock-crow” (yes I had to look it up, I failed Irish in my Leaving Cert) which is a fantastic name for an EP. Especially one as bleak as this one. But this isn’t some sad boi post rock. Nerves are here to make a huge noise and upset you.
The opening track, Takes a Second has a wild eyed tension to it, leaning heavily into the band’s Gila Band influence (Daniel Fox produces this ep) but this is more structured chaos and noise than Gila Band. Only comparatively though. If you don’t enjoy a bit of atonal guitar abuse and a wild assault of drums, I would advise you to give this EP a skip. We won’t be doing that though. We’re into it.
Dirty Fingers sounds like an escalating panic attack, and while Through My Chest is less atonal, it’s still raw noise rock, all wide eyed and bared teeth. Act of Contrition is borderline post rock, which after an abrasive start, calms down and becomes a dash of melody amongst all the tension and distortion. It works as a great mood setter for Don’t Want to Let Go, the white knuckled, yet cathartic ep closer.
While Nerves still show their influences a bit too clearly, this is a fantastic ep and shows just how much promise they hold.
https://lynkify.in/song/takes-a-second/h0EYMsWs
Lowheaven
Ritual Decay
Post metal / alt rock / hardcore
Lowheaven have explained that Ritual Decay is an album that was written to try and put their feelings of a post pandemic world and the horrors of their own lives into music. They wanted to make something “monstrous and dark”, and they really, really have. This is an album that seethes. It’s punishingly heavy in places but knows how to walk the balance between light and dark, so the album doesn’t become (too) overwhelming.
However, it’s going to be impossible to review this album without mentioning Lowheaven’s very obvious love of Deftones. Whenever they go melodic, you can hear that Deftones influence. Luckily it’s something that the band does really well, so it’s in no way a deal breaker. And more importantly, it’s what else the band is mixing into their sound that makes them stand out.
In Grievance is one of the most brutal openers I’ve heard in a long time. It roars into life sounding like Neurosis’ Like Sliver in Blood era, but just when you think it’s going to become overpowering, that Deftones influence comes to play and suddenly everything is melodic and a lot less threatening. That dynamic is played perfectly here, and the opener is probably the strongest track on the album.
From there, the album switches up a bit more. Chemical Pattern dives into sludgey hardcore, completely switching up from the more sedate opener. Cancer Sleep is a huge slab of sludge, but there are parts that remind me of At The Drive In on the vocals. However, you can’t keep that intensity going all the time and the album finally lets up with Amherst, which is mostly sung with a clean vocal, but even then the chorus feels like being sandblasted.
This really is a bracing album, and it’s not going to be something you reach for every day. But when you need to lean into the anger and the darkness, not much else hits like this.
https://lynkify.in/song/in-grievance/YbHb8WhC
And that all for this month. I’ll be back for September for what I already know is one of my albums of the year. Till then.
The ways of exile 