I’ve never been known for my knowledge on musical genres. To be honest I’m borderline ignorant. To me something is either Rock and Roll, or it isn’t. It’s Beatles or Stones. I wear this fact like a badge of pride. I distinctly remember arguing with my flat mate a few years ago about the existence of Kraut-Rock (my argument: “Why would anybody want to listen to something called Kraut-Rock”). So when I was presented with a Deep Elm Records compilation entitled POSTROCKOLOGY, I was immediately on the defensive.
The attached description informed me that Post-Rock is “a subgenre of rock characterized by the use of musical instruments commonly associated with rock music, but employing non-traditional rhythms, harmonies, melodies, timbres, textures, chord progressions and song structures”. This didn’t exactly fill me with hope. Luckily, according to further description Post-Rock creates “an epic, emotional and musical journey through which the listener is transported to hope from despair”. So that was something.
To me it sounded like this was the music handed down to Moses along with The Ten Commandments. It was certainly worth a listen, even if just to add another weapon to my “All Sub-Genres of Rock and Roll Are Useless” arsenal.
I still hold on to my viewpoint. After listening to POSTROCKOLOGY I’ve concluded some of my favourite bands could probably be counted as Post-Rock. The swirling mess of violins and feedback that every HOPE OF THE STATES song threatened to burn up in: Post Rock. The religious mantra choruses of ELBOW that just build into mountains: Post Rock. I’d even say the instrumental passages on NEIL YOUNG’s ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere’ that are almost too pure to listen to: Post Rock.
So here we have ten artists from Deep Elm Records who fall into the Post-Rock category. They’re all loud and very, very epic. There’s an unfair amount of competition involved with listening to showcase compilations. Every band feels like they’re playing their best card, trying to be “the one” you remember. The massiveness of it all is a little intimidating. To use a previous analogy, I once tried to get a friend into Neil Young by playing him ‘Down By The River’ and ‘Cowgirl In The Sand’ back-to-back. I admit it was too much.
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Listening to POSTROCKOLOGY I realise how scared he must have been. Every (mostly instrumental) track here is doing a similar thing. The guitars swell, the drums are never short of stunning, and thankfully there’s usually a great melody to anchor the whole thing. Everything is structured towards an emotional pay-off. These are complete worlds to get lost in.
As with all compilations you’re drawn to personal favourites. Right now I’d say the liquid Disintegration-era Cure guitars of MOONLIT SAILOR put them on top of the heap in terms of magnificence. But aside from the occasional generic Emo vocal, there’s really not a lot to fault here. This is high quality stuff. Some bits of it are even quite beautiful.
If you like music the size of Gods, this compilation is available as a free download from:
Postrockology from Deep Elm digital
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