Skip to main content
Heavy Metal Thunder Post-Metal

Genres Heavy Metal Industrial Metal Post-Metal

Post-Metal

Long, patient music that builds instead of attacking. Frequently instrumental, and closer to post-rock than to anything with a chorus.

Active years
1999 – present
Origin
USA
Family
Industrial / Post / Avant
Bands here
14

Start here

Four records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.

  1. Oceanic Isis, 2002 The landmark

    The record that defined the form — long pieces that build and release rather than riff, with the vocals used as another texture. Aaron Turner called it "thinking man's metal" and then spent years regretting the phrase.

    Listen to Oceanic

  2. Somewhere Along the Highway Cult of Luna, 2006

    Swedish, colder, and more patient. Where Isis build to a crescendo, Cult of Luna often decline to, and the restraint is the effect.

    Listen to Somewhere Along the Highway

  3. Station Russian Circles, 2008

    Entirely instrumental, and the easiest thing here — three musicians, no vocals to acclimatise to, and melodies you can hum. The widest door into post-metal.

    Listen to Station

  4. Mass VI Amenra, 2017

    The bleakest and the most physical. Colin van Eeckhout sings facing away from the audience, and the records are about grief without ever quite saying so.

    Listen to Mass VI

What it sounds like

Patience, and a very long build. Post-metal borrows post-rock's structure — quiet, repetitive figures that accumulate over eight or ten minutes towards one enormous release — and plays it with metal weight and tuning. Guitars are layered and effect-heavy, often delivering texture rather than riffs. Many tracks are instrumental; where there is a vocal it is usually a distant roar treated as another instrument. There is almost no speed and very little anger. Compared with sludge, which it grew out of, it is contemplative rather than hostile, and considerably more concerned with beauty. Albums are usually meant to be heard whole, and a single track pulled out of one tends to sound unfinished, which is the honest cost of the approach.

  • Heaviness 4 out of 5
  • Speed 2 out of 5
  • Aggression 2 out of 5
  • Technicality 3 out of 5
  • Darkness 3 out of 5
  • Melody 3 out of 5

Where the name came from

Borrows the 'post-' prefix from 'post-rock' — music that deconstructs rock using its instruments for non-traditional ends. Coined by critics to describe Neurosis, Isis, and peers who applied post-rock's crescendo dynamics and ambient atmosphere to metal's heaviness, often stripping away vocals entirely.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Isis USA
  • Neurosis USA
  • Cult of Luna Sweden
  • Russian Circles USA
  • Amenra Belgium

And 9 more

  • Pelican USA
  • The Ocean Germany
  • Rosetta USA
  • Caina UK
  • Deafheaven USA
  • Sinistro Portugal
  • Mono Japan
  • Year of No Light France
  • Bast UK

If you liked this

Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.