The Endless: How a Group of Canadians Redefined “Post-Metal”

Take a moment to yourself…

Put on Isis, Tool, or Pelican. Soak up the sounds, the atmospheres. Ingest the potency of emotional rawness, of worlds unseen except by the third eye.

This is post-metal, a genre that seemingly defies true categorization. It is emotive as any subgenre in metal, as heavy and bludgeoning as doom, as perfect for meditation as your favorite spa music.

Does this seem like a contradiction? Perhaps. But that is post-metal. 

The Endless: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Self-released. January 24, 2024

https://theendlessyeg.bandcamp.com/album/the-endless

The Endless: How a Group of Canadians Redefined “Post-Metal”

Edmonton, Canada’s The Endless is, to be frank, the first post-metal band that I’ve taken truly seriously in a long time. I still love the above-mentioned bands such as Isis, Tool, and Pelican, but there is something of the past in their sound, something that reaches back to a world where grunge was falling out of fashion and stoner/doom had yet to reach (somewhat) mainstream consciousness.

The Endless, however, has less of this reaching into the past than some of the other bands making post-metal. Instead, I feel that they are reaching into the future to grasp sounds that have yet to reach our ears. While still resolutely “post-metal” and instrumental, there is greater depth of emotion and a better grasp of dynamics than most bands you will check out this year. 

So the key question becomes: what makes The Endless unique? What makes them tick? What makes them worthy of sitting down for 40 minutes and immersing yourself?

The key to their sound comes through the art of counterpoint and interplay. Chaos swirls around these songs, threatening to tear apart the fabric that holds them together. Thunderous bass threatens to tear at the beauty of the intermingling guitars, drums threaten to overwhelm the sonic landscape through bombast.

Yet all throughout this, the songs hold together, forming a cohesive tapestry as rich as that of Bayeux. It is this interplay of seemingly disparate elements that brings together the songs, wrapping listeners in a warm embrace of distortion, carrying us along as surfers on a wave of noise. 

What I love the most about this album is how the songs work. All too often in metal but especially in post-metal, we see riffs but not songs. As a consumer of music, this is one of my biggest pet peeves. I require a certain element of songwriting for the music to be not only catchy to my ears, but also to hold my interest.

The Endless do this through sophisticated riff writing – yes, that’s very clear from the very first section of opener The Hadean Eon. Light and shade play with each other with intelligence and joy, doing tribute to what Tony Iommi considered a prerequisite of any good album (including his own). When the beauty fades in the shadow of heaviness, it is not saying a tearful goodbye, never to return again, but instead is simply saying that the song requires forward movement so as not to become a stagnant morass.

This forward movement is one of the things that brings me closer to this album and makes me cherish every second of it. Without it, these would simply be guitar pyrotechnics – heavy chords, thick riffs, delicate slides. But because the songs compel you to take one step forward, one yet again, the listener finds themselves to suddenly have the ability not just to walk, but also to run. 

There is a certain bit of me that wants to break down this album song by song, movement by movement, note by note. There’s that much to digest. But to do so ruins a stellar debut by a stellar new band. This album has to be taken as a whole, as a cohesive statement of intent, as a joyous resurgence of the best of what post-metal had to offer, through Isis and Tool especially, as a revitalization of a genre that, to be frank, I consider quite dead. With that in mind, we must answer the simple question that every reviewer has to ask: what makes this special, unique, interesting, vital?

While the songwriting itself, in my eyes, is the strongest part of this album, another significant strength worth mentioning off the bat is the pure virtuosity of this album. As a musician, I am constantly amazed by the sounds created by my peers. Equally, I am jealous of the skill that they have in their fingers that eludes mine.

The Endless are a band that, without a doubt, exemplifies my jealousy. I hear things in their riffs that simply shouldn’t be there – hooks that are subtle and crafted to fit perfectly into the song, never detracting but only becoming exemplary through their presence. Guitars weave back and forth, stitching together new patterns. The bass – played masterfully and with exquisite skill – provides the meter and measure, the bedrock for our journey through mountains and valleys and over seas and prairies. The drumming is restrained when necessary, brilliant and vibrant when the time comes for it.

But it is the fabric that they create as a unit that is the greatest talent of these musicians. It is clear that not only do they care for the songwriting and the riffs, but for the interplay of how a song actually succeeds. 

With all of this in mind, perhaps an important question to ask is, why not have vocals? Wouldn’t lyrics give the listener a better idea of the “meaning” behind a song? Wouldn’t it make them more marketable? Who even listens to instrumental music these days?

Well, the answers are simple. No, no, and people such as myself and those reading this review. 

I don’t think this album needs vocals any more than Aretha Franklin needs an instrumental song. These songs are crafted in such a way that the absence of vocals is not something that detracts from the album, but instead as a way of letting the songs breathe. The instrumentation carries forth an emotional narrative, one that will be different for every listener, but the proof in the pudding is the synchronistic effect of joy and interest. The joy that they play with is apparent and infectious.

It makes you want to play better, play smarter. It leaves room for the imagination of the listener to interject itself into the album. Few songs, pun fully intended, reflect this so clearly as “Reflection.” To me, this is a song about introspection, about self doubt, about uncertainty and anxiety. The multitude of counterpoint melodies are awe inspiring and the bass is quite simply transcendent, held all together by even, perfectly placed drumming.

I find myself stuck facing inwards when listening to this song, enmeshed in its effervescence. Adding vocals detracts from this glamorous melange, superseding the active role that the listener gets to play in the songs as they develop. Is it for everyone? Maybe not. But as an active listener, it fills me with considerable excitement that I get to form my own conclusions about what they’re trying to tell me. 

Put all together, what does this mean? Is The Endless a flash in the pan shining bright amidst the masses of releases? Will they bring triumph to our ears for years like so many of their inspirations?

It’s hard to say, but my personal hope is that the self-titled debut album is not just a flash, but instead the birth of a supernova. They have the riffs, the dynamics, and the songwriting to not only last, but to influence bands to come. I had thought that post-metal was dead but in fact it seems that it is being reborn in the hands of these Canadians.

My hopes for this band are that this album is not just a statement, but the opening chapter in a vast catalog of releases. We should be listening to this band, not just because of their talent but also because they’re saying so much without saying anything at all. The mystery behind their songs is one that allows the reader to create their own conclusions, to reach their own beliefs about the impact of the song. It is a personal album for the band as their debut, but in listening to it on repeat virtually since release, it has also become personal for me. 

The long and short of it is, post-metal did not die when Isis stopped playing shows and recording. Post-metal didn’t die when Tool started playing arenas. Post-metal expands beyond the realms of Pelican and Russian Circles and now rightfully includes The Endless as one of its great champions.

What else is there to do but listen and learn?

– Blake Carrera

To learn more about the Endless, check this exclusive interview: