The post rock and post black metal landscape is one that I’ve often had trouble exploring because of its barren conformity and over-reliance on distant peaks. With my preference for active music, the reaching for crescendos across large distances carry very little appeal, yet Locrian speak to me in a subtly textured voice. Such was the case in 22, when our ambient obsessed blue-skeleton editor Blár gushed over the band’s New Catastrophism, a lush album of ambient and drone that similarly caught my ear. Come the current year, it surprises me that Locrian decide to explore different terrain by increasing the post rock part of their wide net of genres. End Terrain dabbles in some of their old ambient habits but is largely an easier listen with clearer boundaries between songs and song segments. Across the album, there is a post rock lightness that is complemented by some very cheesy 80s synths. Yet these are not used in the formulaic writing you might expect from recent darkwave or synthwave projects that mainly rely on nostalgia. While opener “Chronoscapes” treads in this territory for a bit, “Utopias” and later numbers add some sharpness to the sound that come close to how a band like Krallice use synths on their Demonic Wealth album. However, unlike Krallice, the sound on End Terrain is mainly soft and relies on the bass to pull the songs forward, with the guitar and sharper sounds being the sounds that break the surface in accent.
Much of the success of this album lies in its ability to capture the crisp mood of post rock, yet still work much with the texture of more active music. Meaning, the easy listening nature of End Terrain is one of its strongest points. It is a double edged sword, however, as End Terrain‘s biggest flaw also lies in its post rock nature. With songs that are shorter than the average post rock album, there are times when the album feels like it sustains a moment for very little time before fading. Many of the songs are mood based in this way, and reliant on the progression of the overall album. I realize that I might be walking a fine line between wanting the music to be more active while claiming that the less active parts are the point. Yet songs like “Black Prisms of Our Dead Age” create such great moods that feel like they are gone before they truly get to shine. The less experimental back half of the album keeps me from scoring End Terrain higher but I can’t deny that this is an album I will be putting on throughout the year because of how pleasant it is to listen to. Need a post rock album to try as a fellow skeptic of the genre? End Terrain comes grumpily recommended.
