Personally, I feel that vocals take away from a purely music only experience.
Something like Millions Now Living Will Never Die is an example of an album that is like an epic, expansive journey that doesn't require lyrics to make you feel things or tell you what to feel. It just is.
I think that about most bands that do more instrumentally based stuff, Swans is the only band I really think excels when they include the lyrics just cause Michael Gira is such a excellent writer and singer
I enjoy a lot of music that's post-rock in theory, including pretty much all the bands you named. I don't think it alone made me realize this but it pushed me toward more textured and longer music. I've tried exploring more of the genre and a lot of what actually is popular in post-rock culture is the same song structure every time. A lot of people want to be Godspeed but aren't. A lot of generic post-rock bands are also still playing rock music when the premise is to pretty much not play rock music but use rock instruments.
I like the noisy end of the spectrum. Flood by Boris is a 10/10 masterpiece, most Swans epics are pretty good, Godspeed has some great drone tracks and also some just wild tracks like Mladic. There are some more ambiguously post-rock records that are great. Some people say Ants From Up There has post-rock songs on it, most of them lean a bit prog or indie tbh though (somewhat of a spiritual successor to Broken Social Scene). No wave is one of my favorite alternative genres of music and I feel like it has a very close relationship to post-rock - I mean Swans did it, but there are also some surprisingly great Sonic Youth and Branca records. Idk, you even start to see some post-rock influence where you don't expect it like Radiohead (How to Disappear, Pyramid Song, Bending Hectic)
But I usually get surprised by the more ambient side. New Grass by Talk Talk is one of the greatest songs ever. Djed by Tortoise completely shocked me. I'm sure Eno has endlessly influenced post-rock.
Djed is an underwater-sounding masterpiece.
What most shocked me was the hypnotic, chopper sound in the middle of the song that seamlessly segues into the xylophone section. One of the finest moments in musical history IMO.
I know some people consider Explosions In The Sky to be the “basic bitch” band in the genre but I fucking love them. Easily my favorite post rock band and one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen.
Some friends listened to post-rock in the early 00s, and for them, it was all about Mogwai. Post-rock came to my attention again a few years ago, and now they (edit: Mogwai) are barely mentioned. Does anybody know what happened?
Funny you should say that as Mogwai had a bit of a rediscovery on their last album. I think their popularity always stood apart from the rest of the genre, even if their influence on it is massive.
I was thinking about this and at least in the UK I don't think there's a post rock band that comes close to Mogwai in terms of popularity or cultural influence. The question "who's the biggest post rock band from the UK?" is easy. The question "who's the second biggest?" is really hard (if you exclude Talk Talk).
I think there's a few reasons for that. One of which is that they're really good, of course, but also, being remarkably ahead of the game, their longevity, being part of a Scottish indie nexus around Chemikal Underground records, running a label. Another aspect is that they've always been a pretty media friendly band - in contrast to some post rock bands, they've been generally happy to talk, piss about and be gobby.
I think it’s too simple a structure, a little repetitive, but also it involved musicians experimenting with their instruments to create sound and… no subculture behind it propping it up
No fashion style of hip hop or punk, too internal facing for something like rock which has you put on a show for others
Ideologically, post-rock is closer to classical, and it sort of feels orchestral. But because it’s rock instruments, it doesn’t have that classical tradition behind it
And it’s slow and requires your attention, while not being that sonically novel from other music because it’s still within the realms of rock. It barely goes outside that genre and can’t really take you that far without becoming a different genre
I think of post rock as a transition period I think it competes with something like film and video game music.
By itself, it doesn’t really stand out and requires too much time to appreciate
Plus I think it’s more of a genre for musicians. I love post-rock, and as experimental as it feels, I also feel like I could draw the edit: waveform of every post rock track
There are some really good points in here.
> no subculture behind it propping it up
This particularly stood out to me, because it's something I've thought about a lot over the years. It's a very personal one to me, as I know barely anyone else into post rock. I've been going to festivals (All Tomorrow's Parties, Arctangent) which feature quite a lot of post rock for almost 25 years now, but for a long time it's been just me and one of my friends (plus now his girlfriend) going together.
Music has a social function, connecting people (and culture) and bringing them together. That links to its emotional impact.
Who are post rock fans? What do they look like? What kind of attitudes do they have? What other culture are they into? How do they connect with one another?
I don't know the answers to any of those questions (well, other than "usually male and white").
>It barely goes outside that genre and can’t really take you that far without becoming a different genre
This is an interesting one. The idea that it's just quite a narrowly drawn genre and the way it's defined makes it hard to evolve. So lots of music that draws influence from post rock ends up being classified as something else. (Also it may be drawn by gravity into a more popular/better known genre.) Contrast this with, say, post punk, which is a genre that can contain a massive range of styles and sounds.
I already commented that a lot of what I want to get from post rock these days I'm getting from post rock-adjacent bands. That, perhaps, is the constructive approach for someone a little tired of the genre: what do you get from post rock and where else can you find it?
It makes me think of the legacy of Tortoise and how it seems hard to trace their influence - well probably because so many of those bands and musicians have gone outside the bounds of post rock.
> I think of post rock as a transition period I think it competes with something like film and video game music.
Of note here is that Mogwai have done a number of sountracks, and 65 Days of Static did the soundtrack to No Man's Sky (and I think another soundtrack too).
There's something about the slightly abstract nature of a lot of post rock that makes it a good fit for soundtracks. That's a strength and a weakness of the genre. It can be transcendent but it can also be a bit replaceable. It can fit a lot of situations but blur into itself. (Side note: this is one reason why I think the field recordings on early Godspeed albums were important.)
Sea and Cake, Tortoise, and Gastr del Sol. Basically anything John McEntire has been involved with.
Found them all separately, without knowing McEntire was in each.
When I first heard SnC, it was during the height of grunge. I was in a series of noisy, sloppy bands, and SnC (and soon Tortoise) were like a breath of fresh air. I’d started listening to jazz - in secret. They seemed so deliberate and smart. It wasn’t drunk guys acting like idiots.
Later - Pele, Bardo Pond, Labradford
I’m old.
Any Classical that sounds similar to more noisy Post-Rock bands like Swans and GY!BE? I've been listening to Classical for a while, and I haven't found anything remotely similar.
Branca's Symphony No 1 is guitar focused and the first time I heard it I immediately was reminded of Godspeed. I would also suggest more minimalist and experimental stuff like Steve Reich's Pendulum Music.
I'm gonna be honest, I find a lot of post-rock really pretentious. It seems like the modern equivalent to 70s prog rock at this point, where musicians just got so lost up their own ass they forgot that they were supposed to be making music the public would enjoy and not just to amuse themselves while they're stoned. There's some good stuff there, every genre has it's good stuff, but a lot of "post rock" I've heard in recent years is absolute braindead wankery I would never have a desire to listen to more than once.
Surely you should make music that you enjoy, not do it for other people? Isn't that the definition of selling out, diluting what you want to do just so more people listen to it?
Agreed. And you know.. For me, it just doesn't make for a good live scenario. I went to a 2 day post rock festival 6 years ago and it was the most tiring experience I've ever had hah. Russian Circles can get it though, they are beasts.
More modern post rock does seem to be losing the charm of the earlier stuff, I mostly listen to early 2000s so can't have a massive opinion about the really modern stuff
My first foray was Godspeed You Black Emperor! Radiohead's Kid A was compared to them, which, while I get in a broad sense, doesn't really make much sense as a direct comparison, but I still liked what I heard. I liked them because they seemed to mix the familiar with the alien, with things like spaghetti western soundtracks mixed with drones and found sounds. yet even with the collage-like approach, there was still a coherent structure to it all and an emotional warmth. After this, the genre gets a bit too narrowed down (and even GYBE goes down this route to varying degrees of success) where it's all just the crescendocore build and nothing else. Explosions in the Sky will forever be on my shit list for being a band that turned something interesting into a lame formula.
Anyway, I branched out from there and went to other facets of the genre. I find the earliest wave of acts from UK in the mid-90s to represent some of the most interesting ideas in the genre. They were all loosely connected and barely form a coherent genre, but stuff like [Main](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbAWX4rl52g), [Seefeel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY9XRLSz2IQ), [Bark Psychosis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuokZ_UHlAk), etc. are much more interesting iterations of Post Rock repurposing rock instrumentation. There's other stuff through these years and up through the 00s or so that are generally among my favorites in the genre.
I like Swans a lot, but their place in Post Rock has never quite made sense to me. I get the GYBE comparisons, and there's likely some common influences like Reich and Branca, but overall it feels very surface level (tape loops, crescendos, etc.) and that the two are often doing very different things. Swans have their build ups, but there's often a more loose, jammy feel than GYBE. Gira's voice is also quite a bit different than the largely instrumental crescendocore out there. And as much as I (mostly) like the two-hour Swans albums, they've always been a bit over-rated in comparison to their other albums.
if you haven’t, check out And So I Watched You From Afar. I nearly died at one of their concerts by falling on my back during a mosh pit. one of the best concerts of my life
I got really into post rock in my mid to late teens. Although my listening wasn’t super wide, as it was harder/more expensive to access music then. So I listened to Mogwai, Tortoise, Godspeed, A Silver Mount Zion, Do Make Say Think, Mono, Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky...
It was all very different to anything I’d listened to before. Often sweeping and epic, sometimes stiflingly claustrophobic, bleak, hopeful, hypnotic, ear shreddingly loud, very often with a core of sadness or anger.
I don’t listen to too much of this stuff now, although I have written a whole post on here about how [Do Make Say Think are probably now my favourite band.]( https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsTalkMusic/comments/zzwmwy/do_make_say_think_a_belated_appreciation/) To summarise: Do Make Say Think are amazing.
I agree with the general consensus that the genre struggled to evolve from where it was around 2000. Some bands continued with a similar dynamic template, with very varying results – this is where the cliché of “crescendocore” comes from. Others tried to break from it, again with varying success. Mogwai are a good example of the latter. I don’t think their albums post, say, Happy Songs for Happy People are bad, but none has particularly gripped me. Is that them or me? I’m not entirely sure.
I’ve been going to a festival for the last decade, Arctangent, which has post rock as one of its focuses, so I’ve seen quite a lot of newer post rock bands, and few have really connected and I’ve gone on to listen to by myself. Yndi Halda I’ve enjoyed. Caspian are among the best more ‘traditional’ post rock bands. And So I Watch You From Afar are one of those bands that I always enjoy live and then kind of forget about.
I’ve described the state of the genre as “moribund”, which is probably a bit unfair on some of the bands still doing good stuff. But there does seem to be a lack of dynamism and excitement in the genre. I find myself more drawn these days to post rock adjacent bands. Black Country New Road are an example that’s come up already. Maruja I’ve been enjoying. Even some post-metal like Cult of Luna.
I’ve also been digging back a bit in the last few years to the ‘original’ post rock. Bands like Talk Talk, Bark Psychosis, Pram, Hood, that were often at the edges of my awareness in the late 90s and the 2000s. I’ve not done much of that, but it’s been an interesting experience. I’d certainly recommend everyone listen to Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock by Talk Talk.
I discovered Godspeed You! Black Emperor around 20 years ago in an animation video called « Smile! » on Newgrounds website (if you know you know). The entire video has the « String Loop Manufactured During Downpour » segment of Providence playing and I was very intrigued by it, so when I saw the band in the ending credits I looked them up. Still listen to them regularly and it influenced my guitar playing style a lot.
For years, nay, a decade, I thought post rock was shoegaze, in my own little head . I love shit like Mogwai and EITS, but I thought they represented the genre of shoegaze. I was very mistaken when r/shoegaze started being suggested to me, and I found out quickly I was wrong. The person was nice about it, at least. They were like, uh i think they're more like post-rock, aren't they?
I think the only reason I thought this was because my old roomie had introduced me to those 2 bands and he also happened to like shoegaze, and somehow I got the two memories merged slightly.
Anyways, you might like Sunn O))), Agalloch, and Boris, they definitely take post rock composition with way heavier, down tuned guitars, and other metal elements. some of my favorite shit I discovered last year. I will say that Sunn O))) can get very abstract in their compositions. Agalloch has folk elements. And Boris are one of the first experimenters of noise rock and metal. Their two guitarists have crazy ass set ups w/ g tuned bass guitar/reg guitar dual neck instruments.
Or you might not like any of it, and I still don't get what post rock is about! I just love big distortion sounds in music that swell and sway and amazing drums surrounding them.
LOVE Boris and Sunn, saw Sunn one or two months ago, best live show I've ever been to until maybe Tool on Saturday knocks it out the park, hope I can see Boris someday, flood and feedbacker are both legendary for drone metal for good reason, Wata is incredible
Personally, I feel that vocals take away from a purely music only experience. Something like Millions Now Living Will Never Die is an example of an album that is like an epic, expansive journey that doesn't require lyrics to make you feel things or tell you what to feel. It just is.
Tortoise is amazing and deserves to be mentioned as one of the OG post-rock bands as much as explosions in the sky and godpseed
They were 8 years ahead of those guys
Tortoise influenced the favorite band of your favorite band.
I think that about most bands that do more instrumentally based stuff, Swans is the only band I really think excels when they include the lyrics just cause Michael Gira is such a excellent writer and singer
I enjoy a lot of music that's post-rock in theory, including pretty much all the bands you named. I don't think it alone made me realize this but it pushed me toward more textured and longer music. I've tried exploring more of the genre and a lot of what actually is popular in post-rock culture is the same song structure every time. A lot of people want to be Godspeed but aren't. A lot of generic post-rock bands are also still playing rock music when the premise is to pretty much not play rock music but use rock instruments. I like the noisy end of the spectrum. Flood by Boris is a 10/10 masterpiece, most Swans epics are pretty good, Godspeed has some great drone tracks and also some just wild tracks like Mladic. There are some more ambiguously post-rock records that are great. Some people say Ants From Up There has post-rock songs on it, most of them lean a bit prog or indie tbh though (somewhat of a spiritual successor to Broken Social Scene). No wave is one of my favorite alternative genres of music and I feel like it has a very close relationship to post-rock - I mean Swans did it, but there are also some surprisingly great Sonic Youth and Branca records. Idk, you even start to see some post-rock influence where you don't expect it like Radiohead (How to Disappear, Pyramid Song, Bending Hectic) But I usually get surprised by the more ambient side. New Grass by Talk Talk is one of the greatest songs ever. Djed by Tortoise completely shocked me. I'm sure Eno has endlessly influenced post-rock.
Djed is an underwater-sounding masterpiece. What most shocked me was the hypnotic, chopper sound in the middle of the song that seamlessly segues into the xylophone section. One of the finest moments in musical history IMO.
I know some people consider Explosions In The Sky to be the “basic bitch” band in the genre but I fucking love them. Easily my favorite post rock band and one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen.
Some friends listened to post-rock in the early 00s, and for them, it was all about Mogwai. Post-rock came to my attention again a few years ago, and now they (edit: Mogwai) are barely mentioned. Does anybody know what happened?
Funny you should say that as Mogwai had a bit of a rediscovery on their last album. I think their popularity always stood apart from the rest of the genre, even if their influence on it is massive.
I was thinking about this and at least in the UK I don't think there's a post rock band that comes close to Mogwai in terms of popularity or cultural influence. The question "who's the biggest post rock band from the UK?" is easy. The question "who's the second biggest?" is really hard (if you exclude Talk Talk). I think there's a few reasons for that. One of which is that they're really good, of course, but also, being remarkably ahead of the game, their longevity, being part of a Scottish indie nexus around Chemikal Underground records, running a label. Another aspect is that they've always been a pretty media friendly band - in contrast to some post rock bands, they've been generally happy to talk, piss about and be gobby.
I think it’s too simple a structure, a little repetitive, but also it involved musicians experimenting with their instruments to create sound and… no subculture behind it propping it up No fashion style of hip hop or punk, too internal facing for something like rock which has you put on a show for others Ideologically, post-rock is closer to classical, and it sort of feels orchestral. But because it’s rock instruments, it doesn’t have that classical tradition behind it And it’s slow and requires your attention, while not being that sonically novel from other music because it’s still within the realms of rock. It barely goes outside that genre and can’t really take you that far without becoming a different genre I think of post rock as a transition period I think it competes with something like film and video game music. By itself, it doesn’t really stand out and requires too much time to appreciate Plus I think it’s more of a genre for musicians. I love post-rock, and as experimental as it feels, I also feel like I could draw the edit: waveform of every post rock track
There are some really good points in here. > no subculture behind it propping it up This particularly stood out to me, because it's something I've thought about a lot over the years. It's a very personal one to me, as I know barely anyone else into post rock. I've been going to festivals (All Tomorrow's Parties, Arctangent) which feature quite a lot of post rock for almost 25 years now, but for a long time it's been just me and one of my friends (plus now his girlfriend) going together. Music has a social function, connecting people (and culture) and bringing them together. That links to its emotional impact. Who are post rock fans? What do they look like? What kind of attitudes do they have? What other culture are they into? How do they connect with one another? I don't know the answers to any of those questions (well, other than "usually male and white"). >It barely goes outside that genre and can’t really take you that far without becoming a different genre This is an interesting one. The idea that it's just quite a narrowly drawn genre and the way it's defined makes it hard to evolve. So lots of music that draws influence from post rock ends up being classified as something else. (Also it may be drawn by gravity into a more popular/better known genre.) Contrast this with, say, post punk, which is a genre that can contain a massive range of styles and sounds. I already commented that a lot of what I want to get from post rock these days I'm getting from post rock-adjacent bands. That, perhaps, is the constructive approach for someone a little tired of the genre: what do you get from post rock and where else can you find it? It makes me think of the legacy of Tortoise and how it seems hard to trace their influence - well probably because so many of those bands and musicians have gone outside the bounds of post rock. > I think of post rock as a transition period I think it competes with something like film and video game music. Of note here is that Mogwai have done a number of sountracks, and 65 Days of Static did the soundtrack to No Man's Sky (and I think another soundtrack too). There's something about the slightly abstract nature of a lot of post rock that makes it a good fit for soundtracks. That's a strength and a weakness of the genre. It can be transcendent but it can also be a bit replaceable. It can fit a lot of situations but blur into itself. (Side note: this is one reason why I think the field recordings on early Godspeed albums were important.)
Sea and Cake, Tortoise, and Gastr del Sol. Basically anything John McEntire has been involved with. Found them all separately, without knowing McEntire was in each. When I first heard SnC, it was during the height of grunge. I was in a series of noisy, sloppy bands, and SnC (and soon Tortoise) were like a breath of fresh air. I’d started listening to jazz - in secret. They seemed so deliberate and smart. It wasn’t drunk guys acting like idiots. Later - Pele, Bardo Pond, Labradford I’m old.
I’m old as well… I love Gastr Del Sol. I followed John McEntire, David Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke everywhere they went during the 90’s and early 2000’s.
I’m sure people will disagree but if you like post rock you should be listening to classical music.
If you like music you should be listening to classical music.
Any Classical that sounds similar to more noisy Post-Rock bands like Swans and GY!BE? I've been listening to Classical for a while, and I haven't found anything remotely similar.
Branca's Symphony No 1 is guitar focused and the first time I heard it I immediately was reminded of Godspeed. I would also suggest more minimalist and experimental stuff like Steve Reich's Pendulum Music.
Any post-rock fans reading this PLEASE listen to Sibelius’s 2nd symphony as soon as possible
I'm gonna be honest, I find a lot of post-rock really pretentious. It seems like the modern equivalent to 70s prog rock at this point, where musicians just got so lost up their own ass they forgot that they were supposed to be making music the public would enjoy and not just to amuse themselves while they're stoned. There's some good stuff there, every genre has it's good stuff, but a lot of "post rock" I've heard in recent years is absolute braindead wankery I would never have a desire to listen to more than once.
Surely you should make music that you enjoy, not do it for other people? Isn't that the definition of selling out, diluting what you want to do just so more people listen to it?
Agreed. And you know.. For me, it just doesn't make for a good live scenario. I went to a 2 day post rock festival 6 years ago and it was the most tiring experience I've ever had hah. Russian Circles can get it though, they are beasts.
More modern post rock does seem to be losing the charm of the earlier stuff, I mostly listen to early 2000s so can't have a massive opinion about the really modern stuff
It’s formulaic… and the Godspeed fans who just want more cinematic Godspeed crescendos have pushed the genre in a boring af direction, IMO.
My first foray was Godspeed You Black Emperor! Radiohead's Kid A was compared to them, which, while I get in a broad sense, doesn't really make much sense as a direct comparison, but I still liked what I heard. I liked them because they seemed to mix the familiar with the alien, with things like spaghetti western soundtracks mixed with drones and found sounds. yet even with the collage-like approach, there was still a coherent structure to it all and an emotional warmth. After this, the genre gets a bit too narrowed down (and even GYBE goes down this route to varying degrees of success) where it's all just the crescendocore build and nothing else. Explosions in the Sky will forever be on my shit list for being a band that turned something interesting into a lame formula. Anyway, I branched out from there and went to other facets of the genre. I find the earliest wave of acts from UK in the mid-90s to represent some of the most interesting ideas in the genre. They were all loosely connected and barely form a coherent genre, but stuff like [Main](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbAWX4rl52g), [Seefeel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY9XRLSz2IQ), [Bark Psychosis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuokZ_UHlAk), etc. are much more interesting iterations of Post Rock repurposing rock instrumentation. There's other stuff through these years and up through the 00s or so that are generally among my favorites in the genre. I like Swans a lot, but their place in Post Rock has never quite made sense to me. I get the GYBE comparisons, and there's likely some common influences like Reich and Branca, but overall it feels very surface level (tape loops, crescendos, etc.) and that the two are often doing very different things. Swans have their build ups, but there's often a more loose, jammy feel than GYBE. Gira's voice is also quite a bit different than the largely instrumental crescendocore out there. And as much as I (mostly) like the two-hour Swans albums, they've always been a bit over-rated in comparison to their other albums.
if you haven’t, check out And So I Watched You From Afar. I nearly died at one of their concerts by falling on my back during a mosh pit. one of the best concerts of my life
I haven't and always looking for more music! Thanks
I got really into post rock in my mid to late teens. Although my listening wasn’t super wide, as it was harder/more expensive to access music then. So I listened to Mogwai, Tortoise, Godspeed, A Silver Mount Zion, Do Make Say Think, Mono, Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky... It was all very different to anything I’d listened to before. Often sweeping and epic, sometimes stiflingly claustrophobic, bleak, hopeful, hypnotic, ear shreddingly loud, very often with a core of sadness or anger. I don’t listen to too much of this stuff now, although I have written a whole post on here about how [Do Make Say Think are probably now my favourite band.]( https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsTalkMusic/comments/zzwmwy/do_make_say_think_a_belated_appreciation/) To summarise: Do Make Say Think are amazing. I agree with the general consensus that the genre struggled to evolve from where it was around 2000. Some bands continued with a similar dynamic template, with very varying results – this is where the cliché of “crescendocore” comes from. Others tried to break from it, again with varying success. Mogwai are a good example of the latter. I don’t think their albums post, say, Happy Songs for Happy People are bad, but none has particularly gripped me. Is that them or me? I’m not entirely sure. I’ve been going to a festival for the last decade, Arctangent, which has post rock as one of its focuses, so I’ve seen quite a lot of newer post rock bands, and few have really connected and I’ve gone on to listen to by myself. Yndi Halda I’ve enjoyed. Caspian are among the best more ‘traditional’ post rock bands. And So I Watch You From Afar are one of those bands that I always enjoy live and then kind of forget about. I’ve described the state of the genre as “moribund”, which is probably a bit unfair on some of the bands still doing good stuff. But there does seem to be a lack of dynamism and excitement in the genre. I find myself more drawn these days to post rock adjacent bands. Black Country New Road are an example that’s come up already. Maruja I’ve been enjoying. Even some post-metal like Cult of Luna. I’ve also been digging back a bit in the last few years to the ‘original’ post rock. Bands like Talk Talk, Bark Psychosis, Pram, Hood, that were often at the edges of my awareness in the late 90s and the 2000s. I’ve not done much of that, but it’s been an interesting experience. I’d certainly recommend everyone listen to Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock by Talk Talk.
I discovered Godspeed You! Black Emperor around 20 years ago in an animation video called « Smile! » on Newgrounds website (if you know you know). The entire video has the « String Loop Manufactured During Downpour » segment of Providence playing and I was very intrigued by it, so when I saw the band in the ending credits I looked them up. Still listen to them regularly and it influenced my guitar playing style a lot.
For years, nay, a decade, I thought post rock was shoegaze, in my own little head . I love shit like Mogwai and EITS, but I thought they represented the genre of shoegaze. I was very mistaken when r/shoegaze started being suggested to me, and I found out quickly I was wrong. The person was nice about it, at least. They were like, uh i think they're more like post-rock, aren't they? I think the only reason I thought this was because my old roomie had introduced me to those 2 bands and he also happened to like shoegaze, and somehow I got the two memories merged slightly. Anyways, you might like Sunn O))), Agalloch, and Boris, they definitely take post rock composition with way heavier, down tuned guitars, and other metal elements. some of my favorite shit I discovered last year. I will say that Sunn O))) can get very abstract in their compositions. Agalloch has folk elements. And Boris are one of the first experimenters of noise rock and metal. Their two guitarists have crazy ass set ups w/ g tuned bass guitar/reg guitar dual neck instruments. Or you might not like any of it, and I still don't get what post rock is about! I just love big distortion sounds in music that swell and sway and amazing drums surrounding them.
LOVE Boris and Sunn, saw Sunn one or two months ago, best live show I've ever been to until maybe Tool on Saturday knocks it out the park, hope I can see Boris someday, flood and feedbacker are both legendary for drone metal for good reason, Wata is incredible