Апостроф & Clown Town - Split (2010)

Yes, this is YET AGAIN another post-rock band. Deal with it. I've been sick the last week and I've been getting my post-rock on. If you don't like it you can fuck right off. With that being said, I give you this wonderful split between Апостроф and Clown Town. If you start by track listening, then the first should be Апостроф. Keep in mind both bands ARE from Russia so don't expect to know the lyrics if you don't know Russian. Апостроф combine post-rock elements and sludge and screamo to create an atmospheric but yet dark and despairing sound to them. What I really like about their split is that their songs generally tend to be rather long, which is a good thing. It's not just CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG -random scream- CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG. You can literally hear from when the slowly strummed crescendos turn into chugs and back again. This band most resembles Preface To A Dead Sea, a band I posted a few months ago who do the exact same thing. Sometimes I really don't get the whole post-rock/sludge thing because you can pretty much just call it instrumental sludge. Maybe that word is best reserved for Isis? It seems like everyone is trying to slap the post-rock on everything that has instrumental guitars which isn't always the case. But whatever, it's better than calling it post-metal. Fuck that. But yeah, these guys are pretty cool and Идти До Конца is without a my favorite track. The riff in that song is rather slowly and despairing and about half way into the song it gets to some pretty cool scratching on the guitar. It flows perfectly into the next track, Чайка, an 8 minute track that takes you on a whirlwind of raw melodic energy only to have you speechless as an end result. I definitely wasn't expecting this, seeing as how I only picked up the split for Clown Town. CT's side starts out with a rather layed back intro and then breaks into some awesome female vocals over top some hypnotic guitar picking.  I've never listened to a post-rock band that has female vocals and for them to incorporate screamo takes them to a whole other level. Not to mention they're from Russia, an essential breeding ground for some top tier screamo bands. My favorite track on Clown Town's side of this split is О Родителях (Des Parents), because I think it really captures the essence of Envy with beautifully executed melodies with overlapped with emotional foreign vocals to create a perfect blend of screamo and post-rock. I had a tough time finding this album online so be sure to pick it up when you have the chance. A lot of different Russian websites had this split thrown up but it took extensive steps to download it. Hell, even one wanted me to download some .exe problem and I was just like AHHHH... NOPE, FUCK YOU! So yeah, pick this shit up and spread the word.

Download HERE