Coastlands hail from Orlando in the United States and are clear purveyors of post. At least, that was my first thought when I skimmed the promo copy we received for their self-titled sophomore release. After all, it’s self-titled, it’s got that nifty cover art, the song titles are all single words, and the Bandcamp embed uses lowercase. That’s post, friends. Generally, I’ve been hit-or-miss on post-metal—I value its atmospheres and unique emotional spectrum, but dislike the straightforwardness a lot of post-metal artists employ. So Coastlands seemed like a promising album, one that suggested feeling, growth, and artistry from passionate musicians. Does it deliver on my slightly lofty expectations?
At first, it’s a little hard to tell, because Coastlands opens fairly quietly. There’s a distorted haze, a creeping, building tune on the keys, and some distant vocals. Here and there, a blast emerges from the gloom—a synth hit here, a crash there—but the whole is static and fog and it’s hard to tell exactly what you’re in for. That’s opener “See,” but it’s ironically the follower, “Hollowing,” that provides clarity. Far more “musical,” “Hollowing” builds on the Coastlands sound, a huge, distorted creature of post-metal with hardcore influence and an atmospheric fog that often erupts with intense passages of screaming and anger. Between these moments, synths, guitars, and plaintive, post-esque clean singing keep a balance. In this way, Coastlands is an album that doesn’t fully commit to either side of the post-metal pendulum. It is plaintive, raging, expansive, and straightforward, all at once.
It is also dense—very, very dense. Practically every instrument is heavily distorted or wet. The guitars in particular are so much so as to make individual riffs nearly indiscernible, and the bass has a similar treatment—it may as well be a second guitar for how much presence it has. Every hit on the snare drum reverberates (probably too much, but it is in line with the rest of the music). The piano is the only instrument really spared this treatment, I imagine, to make it stand out more against the harsher elements of Coastlands’s music. Even so, they echo, and the synths on the other side crackle with the rest. The result is that if you aren’t paying close attention, the songs start to blur together. “Neverhere” can easily pass you by if you’re not watching out for it, despite its comparatively uplifting vocal melodies. Speaking of vocals, the promo material for Coastlands implies this is the first of Coastlands’s music to feature vocals. Unsurprisingly, the vocals, screams, and cleans are also heavily distorted and produced (respectively), but they’re also so low in the mix—and fighting against so many loud instruments—that it’s hard to hear them, screams and all.
I find Coastlands hard to properly immerse myself in, and I’ve largely covered the reasons—an overbearing production and heavy use of distortion that makes the music difficult to follow. It’s not particularly melodic, though it has its moments (the plaintive picking in “Drugblood” is nice). It doesn’t make me feel contemplative, cathartic, or particularly angry. I do get the sense that it has layers, but they’re so hard to pick up on that they don’t end up doing much. “Vessels” is a song with a lot of components, but not a lot happens. It’s got a cool post-metal drive towards the end, but the fuzz that backs it up suffocates it. “Mors” is largely a repetition of the same motif on keys, but it doesn’t build to anything, doesn’t go anywhere. And it’s frustrating, not just because the album is advertised as being “intricately layered and dense,” but because I believe it probably is and have no way to prove the theory.
In the promo copy for Coastlands, the author says it “keeps revealing its secrets even after multiple, attentive listens.” I agree with this—the more I listen to it, the more I notice about it. Unfortunately, I still haven’t heard its heart. Coastlands feels to me like an album betrayed by its production and robbed by its master. The intense distortion covers the guitars, the synths, and the passion I know the members of Coastlands have for their craft. I believe it’s here, but I can’t hear it.
Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Translation Loss
Websites: coastlands.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/coastlandsofficial
Releases Worldwide: October 10th, 2025
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