It feels that, by far, one of the most populated styles in our current digital age of music revolution is post-rock with the instrumental variant finding massive success in places like Bandcamp where it feels no less than rampant. Every other day feels like we see a new popular album come from the style and I find that both exhausting and encouraging at the same time since there’s always something quality to hear, but hearing the same thing over and over again can get old quite fast. But, lucky for me, it’s through the wonder of moderation that it hasn’t lost its luster for me, and it’s through that I found loads to enjoy out of the latest offering that Meeting with Hans has created for us.

Whenever I go into something from this style, it’s clear to me that the use of the slow build is something that instrumental post-rock acts absolutely love to employ and it’s not hard to see why. You can bring some really great, interesting atmospheres when you do it right with some smooth rock goodness being the perfect follow-up. But with “Genius Loci”, Meeting with Hans doesn’t really go for anything that could even qualify for being all that atmospheric as this act wastes no time whatsoever. The beginnings and endings of all five of these tracks are incredibly abrupt as the goal for Meeting with Hans almost purely seems to consist of coming in, laying down some solid melodies with a tasteful level of heaviness, and then getting the hell out. And it works surprisingly well! It might sound a tad boring or even amateurish in the wrong hands, but it’s all throughout “Genius Loci” that Meeting with Hans never makes it feel boring with there being loads upon loads of interesting bits to eat right up as each track progresses with incredible pacing and more than enough diversity across every song to provide the album with an organic tone that hits all the right notes.

Like I said, this particular vein of rock can easily feel exhaustingly boring if put in the wrong hands just due to the sheer volume of bands and releases that the scene has to call its own, but, fortunately, Meeting with Hans is anything but. “Genius Loci” is a very fitting offering for the style and it’s simply a piece that you can’t go wrong with if you’re looking for something that does nothing but justice for the style as Meeting with Hans clearly knows how to navigate the style with immaculate precision.

LISTEN to “Genius Loci” on Bandcamp here.