Show Me a Dinosaur
Dust

I have historically had some problems with this sort of bastardized Post Rock in its instrumental version. I have never been able to explain to myself exactly why. Post Rock with big guitars, Post Metal, Post Core, call it whatever you want, if it is completely instrumental, I probably won't like it; I'll find it boring. Pelican, Russian Circles, Omega Massif, I've never thought they aren't good bands, but they bore me. It doesn't help that originality and the ability to stand out have become very rare commodities in this scene in recent years, both in the more melodic Post Rock and in the harsher one. You can distinguish a circle of bands that rank at the top for their fame for having played the genre in a certain way before others; each one is followed by their clones, more or less valid, but which make faithful reproduction their fortune. There are the clones of Explosions In The Sky, the clones of Pelican, those of God Is An Astronaut, and so on. But I don't want to talk about a band that instantly adds to this circle of X times cloned groups (perhaps).

As I was saying, I usually can't digest instrumental music in Post-Whatever, especially when it's something harsher than classic Post Rock. I still haven't figured out why. Probably, I would adore Isis even if they were instrumental, considering that vocals are not their main strength (they add something, but Turner, in my opinion, is an excellent guitarist before being a singer). It's half a mystery. Then something changed the situation.

Behind the moniker Show Me a Dinosaur is a purely instrumental trio from Saint Petersburg, already debuted with "Evolvent" in 2011. In January 2014, they came back with "Dust". The impact is stunning. A bolt from the blue in the stagnant instrumental Post Rock and Post Metal panorama, where trails are already trodden without the energy of pioneers hoping that a new path will open up or to succeed better than all the others who have already beaten the same path without putting in the right energy.

Show Me a Dinosaur, on the other hand, do have this energy. They play with an intensity very similar to the more renowned bands of the genre, building up a simply insane wall of sound, perfectly blending borrowed elements, reinterpret, and gradually shape their own formula. Ambient inserts and melodic yet at the same time claustrophobic openings that recall Isis but also Explosions In The Sky in the less dark interludes, make their way through the cracks of a sound wall, sometimes akin to a Shoegaze work even if it's not Shoegaze.

The start with "Man Made God" is majestic with a thunderous bass, echoes of Neurosis, and almost Stoner traits. The one in the third track "Drawing the Line" is an exceptional and massive crescendo, which, although set differently, reminds of Godspeed You! Black Emperor for intensity, a reverberating guitar that provides a backdrop to a vocal sample taken from Jurassic Park (a sample was also present in "Man Made God"), an inexhaustible source of noise, emotion, and melody that explodes in the mind and takes something. One of the best episodes of the work.

The concluding tracks "Dust" and "Rain" also include vocals. Shouted and anguished vocals that resound as distant and immersed in a general chaos of rain, wind, and thunder, and slowly die away as the melody paints the image of a pale beam of light making its way through a thick but now depleted and rarefied cloud cover, ready to dissolve. "Rain" ends this way, a close reminiscent of the more expansive and luminous Envy, the monumental wall built by the previous 6 tracks has crumbled, now we can see beyond, the world is larger than we could imagine.