Old World Vulture — Old World Vulture

I'd long ago written post-rock off as a tired, boring, stale, repetitive genre that lacked creativity. But Old World Vulture's self-titled release holds the kind of promise that's just unique enough to make me reconsider that.

Of course, comparisons to other post-rock groups like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Mogwai are inevitable. Let's just get them out of the way now.

Opener "Destroyer" is probably the most Godspeed-esque, since it starts with atom bomb architect J. Robert Oppenheimer's infamous Bhagavad Gita-quoting "Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds" quote, which he said after the bomb's 1945 Trinity test in New Mexico. It's entirely obvious why that track will get Old World Vulture the most Godspeed comparisons — they seem to have a similar obsession to the apocalypse as the Montreal nontet.

Truthfully, though, Old World Vulture have more in common with Explosions In The Sky than any other band, though the keyboard on "'Changing Thoughts" makes them sound hilariously like Vangelis.

Old World Vulture is a mere 24 minutes in length, and while it's split into different tracks, the sequencing is excellent and no song seems out of place.