Post-Rock Bands nowadays

Nowadays, Post-Rock is so much more than Simon Reynold’s definition. Post-Rock is a culture, a musical way of living and is home to a variety of versions and subgenres. This makes it even more difficult to fit Post-Rock into boxes, than it used to be 20 years earlier. There is Post-Hardcore, which has long evolved from what ‘Slint’ sounded like back then, there is Post-Metal, based on harder, more violent tones, there is Post-Black-Metal, mostly mixed with Shoegaze, then called Blackgaze and so forth.

It’s simply instrumental music tagged as ‚Post-Rock’

What most bands of this generation have in common, is the fact that they did not plan on playing Post-Rock music. In the digital world we live in, a band that simply plays instrumental rock music, that uploads their music to the internet will suddenly be provided with a ‚Post-Rock’ tag by fans and critics. On the one hand side, nobody likes to have his works attached with insignificant, general attributes, but on the other hand, these categories and boxes enable a kind of snowball system that gives us the opportunity to discover new music.

Post Rock Playlists on Spotify

Let’s take the music streaming-service ‘Spotify’ as an example. Now and then, ‘Spotify’ provides us with new Playlists that contain songs, based on different genres or moods. The Playlist ’Deep Focus’ has over 1,7 million followers and contains bands, such as ‘Collapse Under The Empire’, ‘Lights and Motion’, ‘Explosions in the Sky’ and ‘The End Of The Ocean’; bands that are generally summed up under the genre of Post-Rock. When taking a look at these bands on ‘bandcamp’, or when reading reviews in magazines, it becomes apparent that all these bands are not only referred to as ‘Post-Rock’, but also as ‘Cinematic’ and ‘Soundscape’. None of these bands sound like the other and yet they all have similar influences and characteristics. By tagging them with exactly these insignificant and general attributes, the consumer is given the chance to discover more and more amazing bands. Regarding it from this perspective, boxes do have their advantages after all.