Back in stock: Post Rock/Experimental

Review: Pioneering Japanese psychedelic rock Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. (AMT) were formed in 1995. Their relentless output has spawned various offshoots over the years, such as Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno and Acid Mothers Temple SWR, synthesising and alien cosmo-grammar in sound, one that perhaps only the most acid-casualtied tongues can interpret or speak. Now present through Rolling Heads comes their latest album for 2025: Holy Black Mountain Side comprises three psychedelic pieces, reticulating a series of recording sessions held down between 2021 and 2023, at one point reinterpreting a traditional folk song, and throughout enlisting guest bass from Taigen Kawabe of Bo Ningen. Each record comes wrapped in unique artwork by lead improvisor Kashiwagi Ten, adding an extra layer of veiled mystery to each: no two records are visually alike.

Review: "Random, tense, scary and compulsively fascinating". That's how Chris Connelly describes the period in which the tracks on this album were originally written. As the main man behind some of the most iconic and influential industrial bands in history - Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Murder.Inc... - he's definitely well placed to make this kind of judgment. And it comes across even more understandable if you grasp the fact he's meaning all that in a good way. Throbbing Gristle should need no introduction, having pretty much written the blueprint for industrial musick in the nuclear age. A sound that screamed "get us out". Combine that oeuvre with this guy, then, and you have something which is uncompromisingly explosive and effective. Not to mention fitting, given half the people on the street seem convinced we're rushing headfirst into another atomic standoff, if not something much, much worse.

Review: American guitar legend Ry Cooder's 1985 score remains a defining example of minimalist film music, built almost entirely around sparse motifs and slide guitar. Recorded for Wim Wenders' feature set in the American Southwest, the ten-track sequence avoids orchestration entirely, opting instead for open-ended cues that feel improvised but never unfocused. 'Paris, Texas' opens with the recognisable main theme i a slow, resonant guitar line set against silence. 'Brothers' and 'Nothing Out There' follow similar patterns, with minor variations in phrasing and tempo. The inclusion of 'Cancion Mixteca', sung by Harry Dean Stanton, adds one of the only vocal moments on the set, grounded in traditional folk. The remainder of the tracks i including 'No Safety Zone', 'Houston In Two Seconds' and 'Dark Was The Night' i continue the pared-back approach, prioritising tone and atmosphere over melody. Some 40 years since its original release, the material hasn't dated i not because it sounds modern, but because it was never trying to. It remains quietly influential, especially in the way it reframed narrative scoring through reduction.

Review: Following on from 2021's hard left turn into dream-pop territory on Infinite Granite, San Francisco blackgaze legends in the making Deafheaven return with a work that they've always been striving towards. Their sixth full-length, Lonely People With Power, takes lessons from the saccharine shoegaze of their previous outing and injects it directly into the veins of their heaviest material since 2015's New Bermuda, culminating in a deft balancing act that finally combines vocalist George Clarke's shrieking, inhumane howls with his recently discovered crooning lilt, exuded as such on the beautiful warring of styles that is 'Heathen'. Elsewhere, 'Magnolia' provides a cataclysmic beast of proggy black metal akin to latter-day Emperor whereas 'Doberman' goes full euphoric blackened shoegaze reminiscent of 2013's breakout sophomore triumph Sunbather. Striking a unique chord between their equal and effortless understanding of black metal malevolence and the ethereality of cinematic post-rock, the album sees a notable trade off from their their usual smaller collection of lengthy, grandiose tracks that all clock in at over ten minutes a piece in favour of a more varied, yet succinct and instantaneous batch of cuts, 12 in total, marking the most that any Deafheaven project has ever offered.

Review: In the mid-90s while the hardcore punk scene witnessed both an influx of more melodious acts as well as those injecting the scene with as much metallic bite as possible, few could have been prepared for the utter assault on the senses The Dillinger scape Plan were cooking up. Often cited as the one of the pioneering acts in the mathcore subgenre (combining the unhinged intensity of hardcore with the compositional dexterity of math rock), 1999's Calculating Infinity is still regarded to this day as one of the most uncompromising, impenetrable, and challenging debuts in alternative, punk or metal. Their only full-length with original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis before his departure and subsequent replacement by the admittedly much more dynamic Greg Puciato, and pre-dating their experimental collaborative EP with Faith No More/Mr. Bungle mastermind Mike Patton; the material here does little to offer any sonic respites of glitched out synth ambience or even a melodious hook. Rather, it lays down a highly complex blueprint of odd time signatures, polyrhythms, dissonant breakdowns, jazz freakouts and caustic vocal howls that would inspire an entirely new wave of outsiders who felt hardcore and metal just weren't vicious or experimental enough on their own merits.

Review: Rhode Island post-metal avant-garde duo The Body have made a name for themselves due to their caustic maelstrom of harsh, brutalist experimentalism as well as their prolific output and collaborative nature, releasing collab albums with the likes of Full Of Hell, Thou, Uniform, and most recently, Dis Fig. Their latest endeavour sees the pair link up with another duo of musical extremity, Toronto, Canada's recently reformed industrial two-piece Intensive Care. Was I Good Enough? has been on the cards since the artists first began making plans as far back as 2018, trading, warping and ruining mutual sessions with layers of loops, distortion, samples and even dubs, constantly striving to find the ideal haunting balance between both of their sonically hideous, oppressive worlds. For all of our ears' sakes, they just might have succeeded.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


Icelandic experiment Low Roar heard Ryan Karazija, Leifur Bjornsson and Logi Gudmundsson indulge a transoceanic collaboration, extending many a riotous yet sensual sludgeoff between indie pop and post-rock until Karazija's death in 2022. Since this sad event, subsequent records have heard the band reuse loose elements recorded by Karazija in a posthumous fashion, and House In The Woods is a brilliant new example. Pressed to vinyl quickly after an initial digital release, the album blends typical Icelandic ambient-string work with sensuous background vocals and harmonium layers, and deals in a range of subjects from decrepitude to endless love, marked by a sense of sublimity throughout.

Review: ML Buch's new album pushes her experimental pop into new realms and ably builds on the expansive guitar work and catchy melodies introduced in her 2017 debut EP, 'Fleshy'. Her distinctive sound combines synthetic MIDI textures with heartfelt songwriting and ethereal vocals that evoke the fluidity of intimacy in a digital world. Through tender tracks like 'I'm A Girl You Can Hold IRL' and 'Can't Get Over You With You,' the artist takes listeners beneath the skin and explores a visceral, surreal world. Panoramic visuals captured via a pill camera mirror this exploration in a blend of technology and human emotion this is truly unique.

Review: Brooklyn-based Model/Actriz, a four-piece rock band formed in 2016, return with an electrifying new chapter in their career. Frontman Cole Haden, guitarist Jack Wetmore, bassist Aaron Shapiro, and drummer Ruben Radlauer have forged a sound that merges post-punk aggression with noise rock's raw energy. Their latest release is a visceral, direct exploration of both the visceral chaos of their live shows and the darker, more introspective side of their sound. After their debut album Dogsbody earned critical acclaim in 2023, they've recalibrated their approach, opting for a more stripped-down and immediate experience. Tracks like 'Cinderella' and 'Acid Rain' charge forward with the kind of club-ready energy that makes their performances unforgettable, while 'Doves' and 'Audience' offer hauntingly introspective moments. Model/Actriz's commitment to blending queer themes with explosive music continues, pushing boundaries in both their lyrics and sound.

Review: Southend's These New Puritans have a rare ability to create goosebump-inducing music. A big part of is is Jack Barnett's voice, which is truly up there with the likes of Thom Yorke and Hayden Thorpe's in terms of being able to tug at the heartstrings and create grandiose spellbinding atmospheres. Plus, the arrangements that accompany it are of elite level and taste. This new album is their fifth studio album since forming in 2006 and offers plenty in the way of diversity. 'A Season In Hell' is a wild mix of industrial, organ music, trip-hop and choir sounds. Elsewhere, 'Bells' is less intense and let's the atmosphere form gradually and luxuriously. If you want a record to properly blow your socks off, let it be this.

Review: The concept album is a divisive, err, concept. So often are we overwhelmed at the length of sleeve notes that make such little tangible sense it feels like falling through a wall of ketamine on acid, it almost makes us approach all sleeve notes with trepidation. Then you have records that have a bat shit crazy idea behind them, but convey it quite succinctly. Or at least in terms of the vital information you need to know. A few years before his own spiritual journey led him to Islam, Cat Stevens, later Yusuf, gave us Numbers, which is frankly the best type of concept album. Playing out like a surreal rock opera, of sorts, it's the soundtrack to a planned book, The Pythagorean Theory Tale, which tells of a planet, Polygor, on which there's a castle with a number machine, there to churn out new numbers and distribute these across the galaxy. Does it make sense? No. Do we grasp the fundamentals? Yes. Is it fantastic? Most certainly.