ARE YOU MY BROTHER ?

There's a recent surge of great post-rock bands emerging on the Australia scene in recent times, with bands such as Meniscus gaining a loyal following, and sleepmakeswaves garnering a recent ARIA nomination and touring with Aussie prog giants Karnivool. Solkyri have now dropped their first full length release, "Are You My Brother?", and with it they deliver a beautifully crafted addition to the Aussie post-rock stable.

The trio of Adam Mostek, Andrew Pearsall and Nick Hall draw us into this album with some gorgeous ambient chiming on "His Ghosts Will Invade Puerto Rico". Alex Wilson from sleepmakeswaves also drops in to lend a hand on synths for this track. A nice drifting guitar melody slips seamlessly into the mix as the track, almost 14 minutes long, begins in earnest. The song swells nicely as percussion, strings and bass all join in, and this leads to a great up-tempo rock crescendo. The ambience returns for the last few minutes and completes a terrific opener.

Track 2 "Hunter" then ramps up the intensity, with a faster tempo and some great riffing. There's a great mixture of light and shade here, with those crunching guitar chords offset by melodic, delay-infused guitar that's often the hallmark of this genre. Solkyri certainly demonstrate here that they can rock with the best of them.

There's more lovely ambience as "Glory" drifts in, accompanied by a sorrowful piano melody. It's one of the shorter tracks on the album but also one of the best. "With Strawberries Like Dead Men" continues on in this vein, with the piano melody joined by guitar and a wonderful strings arrangement. I'll be interested in particular to see how this track translates to a live performance. It would really be something to see with the full strings ensemble present, but unfortunately this isn't usually practical for touring bands.

"Home" begins with a simple, reverb-heavy guitar melody, and then out of nowhere there's a surprise: percussion, guitar chords and vocals erupt. The latter is beautifully delivered by Hannah Cameron. This is a great change of pace and something I'd like to hear from more post-rock bands. It's certainly an album highlight for me.

"I Am the Motherfucker" is a percussion-driven number, and as the title would suggest, it is more aggressive in tone than much of the rest of the album. We're also treated to some huge sounding chords in the second half of the track, but by the end of proceedings things are markedly calmer. It's a little like a journey through anger and frustration that inevitably leads to a cathartic release. A great track.

"Threads of an Old Life" closes out the album and once again there's great use of vocals, this time with a choir ensemble adding some wonderful atmospherics.

The accompanying artwork by local Nat Carroll also sets a great mood with beautiful soft tones and lovely imagery.

Solkyri have assembled a great assortment of musicians on this album to bring together something really special. It's post-rock done with their own signature style, and the integration of strings and vocals has a natural, organic feel, like an extension of the guitars and synths, rather than something that has superficially been added for atmosphere. Highly recommended.