Fusing traditional Iranian folk instrumentation with Finnish compositional techniques and aesthetics, experimental duo Gnäw capture the essence of the desert with the temperature of the boreal on Gnäw II.

These guitars enable that coveted soaring feeling, with warm chords and frantic, noisy delivery that flesh out the sound into something majestic, even otherworldly.

Musical influences from post rock and skramz pull the record further into the darkness, with a highly percussive sound whose sparse and unconventional use of melody only intensifies the suffocating atmosphere of stagnant dread.

Chugging acoustic guitar and mumbling vocals get dipped (and sometimes soaked) in reverb to create the dusky, foggy atmosphere, a gothic tone which amplifies the record’s macabre lyrical storytelling.

These motifs, simple melodic lullabies played on pianos or other minimal synths, appear on each track, planting the seed of a mesmerizing memory.

Aesthetically, this record juggles an extreme diversity of styles, smoothing over its angular math rock riffs with traditional folk fiddle, then breaking into staccato post punk segments that devolve into aggressive, difficult post rock anti-harmonies.

We may see the body as existing entirely outside, or potentially in opposition to, spirituality, but for Maud the Moth on The Distaff, the body serves as the source, purpose, and pilot of spirituality.

Highlighting the queer struggle and those who paved the way for future liberation, the record honors these figures without sanitizing them, giving them a full-color afterlife to mirror their time on earth.

Assembling a historical narrative with modern sounds to address these emerging experiences, Welsh noise rock band This Is Wreckage presents Transaction/Service, a blisteringly heavy, cavernously dark musical experience.

Music exists everywhere in this world, yearning for freedom. Sounds enter the magical chambers of (The Game Is) Hypnosis by Joseph White as mundane, forgotten artifacts of the everyday, only to emerge as components of a warm, bubbling, beautiful work of art.

Blending folk legend and real history, Folklore shrouds in mythic imagery tales of violent worker exploitation met with unflinching bloodshed in return. But, this anonymous one man band asks, what is the victory worth, when the prize is the destruction of your homeland, stripping the forests and forever poisoning the lakes with coal tar?

We knew to expect an experimental turn for the next Ethel Cain record, but nothing could have prepared us for Perverts, a dark ambient record that experiments thematically, sonically, vocally, and structurally to present a nuanced philosophical system that addresses some of the deepest, darkest emotional hollows.

A lone hiker scrambles up a cliff face, sent on this harrowing journey by the thrill of the sublime and only now taking stock of the implications. The meditative, folk-inspired raga of Language of the Torch by Kelby Clark starts at this key moment, the inflection point at which headstrong ecstasy freezes into shuddering fear.

Industrial hardcore band Haunted Horses skirts the event horizon on Dweller, a relentless, terrifying record to guide you through the threshold of outsideness.

Split LP No esperan por nadie by Chilean bands Coclea and Canut de Bon dresses its ferocious, moshable hardcore riffs in classic emo darkness, with each band bringing their own flair to this harsh, angular, riveting sound.

The music of Meridian by Tanpopo Crisis continues the rich tradition of atmospheric black metal, a style which derives temporal intensity from a frantically blast beating rhythm section while harnessing all the melodic, harmonic, and sentimental power of a string orchestra through its sweeping guitar soundscapes.

 We’ve never been more spiritually free, we’ve never been so existentially hungry, and we’ve never been so essentially clueless. This directionless, all-consuming lack appears in fits and spurts across the epic compositions of Unlimited Violence Apologia by Bee Hive Ski Race, an emo album that effortlessly treads into hardcore, noise rock, and grunge with its versatile vocals and tight instrumentals.

At the core of the whimsical experimentation of So, Ho Hum, Moribet sits effortlessly compelling songs in the folksy singer-songwriter tradition, fighting desperately to shine their human radiance through a suffocating film of lo fi electronica.

A nuanced, uncomfortable flow of emotion springs forth from Death by Thisworldisnotkind, a post-rock-inspired skramz record that struggles through extreme, persistent loss by rejecting dehumanization from all sources and in all forms.

Fortifying strong bones of midwest emo and slowcore with the eccentricities of noise rock and post rock, Look Outside, We’re Dying by Sap House addresses the slow encroachment of death as those we love start leaving us behind.