A few years back, a good friend made me a mix-tape containing an APPLESEED CAST track. At the time, I was knee-deep in swoon for bands like THE GET UP KIDS and MINERAL, and THE APPLESEED CAST’s youthful, messy take on post-hardcore was just what my twenty-year-old ears desired. Their eighth studio album, titled Sagarmatha, is much different than their cranky, yet heartfelt past, and is more influenced by SIGUR ROS’ expansive instrumental crescendos than Dischord’s noisy discography.

THE APPLESEED CAST take their time with Sagarmatha, which meanders through valleys of grief, and mountains of heaviness for 49 minutes. The opening track “As The Little Things go” is a complacent 8 minute shoe-gazer, built beautifully upon the backbone of electric guitar chimes, then exploding into a foreboding ISIS-like breakdown. The vocals are not nonexistent; just marginalized, pushed to the last minute of the song, and soaked in reverb and digital manipulation, making the lyrics difficult to understand. Few vocal melodies and long songs make Sagarmatha almost overwhelming, and it treads dangerously close to snooze-land. But atmospheric rockers like “South Col” keep the slowness in check, beginning with a pounding back beat and haunting power-chords that strongly recall the driving gloom of JESUS AND MARY CHAIN’s 1989 release Automatic.

Sagarmatha is a highly experimental album that understands the blurred line between atmospheric and self-indulgent. Considering the genre journalists triumphantly coined “post rock” has existed a few years, Sagarmatha isn’t exactly groundbreaking. It is, however, an oddly pretty and often times compelling LP that’s perfect for listening moods that don’t require lyrical accompaniment. Definitely a head phone clad, lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling disc, so if that is your form of escapism, then let Sagarmatha take you away.

The Militia Group / Vagrant / Graveface