Band:	Into Orbit
Album:	Caverns
Style:	Post-metal
Release date:	August 2014

01. Corridors... Caverns
02. Set Adrift
03. Aphelion
04. Perihelion
05. Towers
06. Creeping Vines

Hailing from the land down under? no, not the one with Crocodile Dundee and Men At Work. The other one. The one where all sorts of Hollywood types run around LARPing for the cameras. You know, "Lord of Xena Warrior Princess" stuff..

Oh wow. Train of thought derailed. Oh my god the humanity.

So, Into Orbit are from New Zealand, they play post-metal/rock, and Caverns is probably worth your while.

Fortunately for my poor eardrums they play closer to the Explosions In The Sky style. Eloquent and evocative atmospheric notes sparkle while a basic melody is laid. Tracks slowly build into some degree of crescendo. In the case of Into Orbit these parts aren't simply playing the same riffs and stomping on a distortion pedal. No. They vary and have a rather visceral feel. You can imagine the band physically attacking their instruments. Sometimes with hammered dissonance, other times with the occasional psychedelic surf rock backing rhythm.

They find a way to keep it interesting.

So you have evocative-if-formulaic song structures. Hooray.

"But what about the vocals?" you ask?

"I really hate when I'm chilling to some swell post-rock/metal/zydeco tunes then some angry jackass starts SCREAMING AT ME RAWYRAYYRGGRGGRGGHHHH!", you note.

I feel you, brah.

I, too, want to break my claw hammer out of retirement and start laying waste to anything and everything in my zip code so others can feel my pain each time a perfectly serviceable song is absolutely ruined by this horrid phenomenon.

Fortunately these swell guys are more than content to let their instruments do the talking and avoid that whole singing thing entirely.

So I've hammered out about 250 words now, a lot of 'em adjectives, but little about the music itself, I guess.

It's post-rock/metal, I name-dropped Explosions, so you have a vague idea what to expect. With this style of music, as with most music, it's simply a matter of whether or not it clicks with you. Unlike most the post acts I've reviewed the past couple years, it did with me. I still enjoy it and am glad these guys passed the opportunity my way and were cool with the whole "it might be a while because I'm moving continents and environs" thing.

So much so I went this entire review without making a Kiwi reference. (Oops.)