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Reviews

We Lost the Sea — A Single Flower
(Bird's Robe BRR177, 2025, CD / LP / DL)

We Stood Like Kings — Pinocchio
(Kapitän Platte Kutter 079, 2026, CD / LP / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2026-03-19

A Single Flower Cover artPinocchio Cover art

In addition to a similarity in names, the bands We Lost the Sea and We Stood Like Kings have a stylistic relationship in that both of them can be broadly labeled post-rock. The former is from Australia and the latter from Belgium, and I think it’s interesting to compare their latest albums. We Lost the Sea’s A Single Flower is epic in length as well as sound, running over 70 minutes with just six tracks, one of which is nearly a half hour long. We Stood Like Kings is much more concise on Pinocchio, giving us nine tracks not even lasting 50 minutes in total. On A Single Flower, several of the tracks have long passages that are very quiet, and while the dynamic range is impressive, it’s likely to have you adjusting your volume from time to time, boosting it for ambient sections of guitar and echoes, then getting blasted when the full band comes in — though most of the time, the transition from quiet to loud is done very gradually, building the intensity slowly over the course of several minutes then remaining at full bore for a few minutes more. Listening to the album can be likened to sitting in the middle of a vast featureless plain. A subtle sound alerts you to something happening in the distance, and as you look towards it, you see an indistinct roil of dust. As it gets closer, you can work out that it’s a large herd of massive beasts, tromping slowly and inexorably towards you, their feet tramping in unison with a plodding, relentless rhythm. Eventually, they are upon you, passing by in their numbers and causing the ground to shake in time with their steps. Then they’re past you, and the sound decreases, leaving you alone, until you notice something in another direction. It’s another herd of animals, a different species with a slightly different rhythm to their movement, but the story is more or less the same. Sometimes there are a few stragglers at the back of the herd, sometimes the animals are larger or smaller, but they approach and pass by just the same. In some ways, the music is very typical for post-rock, so if you like the style, you know what to expect.

We Stood Like Kings has a history of recording soundtracks for silent movies, and while Pinocchio is not one of those, following instead a dark interpretation of the well-known character’s story, which was actually fairly dark before Disney got hold of it. This album is all instrumental, so it’s quite possible to listen to it without thinking about a narrative, and it succeeds on all levels. Keyboards, especially piano, are more prominent in this band than in We Lost the Sea, though compared to previous Kings albums, the guitar is much heavier. Some tracks, like the lead-off “Assassins,” border on metal, with crushing precise rhythms and double-kick-drum throbbing. This kind of intensity is built from more diverse elements, not relying on stately mid-tempo plodding, and with melodies that move in a variety of ways, not just long notes on tremolo-picked guitar. There are also passages of very quiet music, though the pieces are not all constructed on the same pattern. The range of keyboard sounds add different textures, and the shifting rhythms, while they don’t take on math-rock complexity, do increase the enjoyability of the album immensely. Pinocchio is undoubtedly the band’s best release yet, and signals a new era in their sound.

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases, 2026 releases

Related artist(s): We Lost the Sea

More info
http://wslk.bandcamp.com/album/pinocchio
http://welostthesea.bandcamp.com/album/a-single-flower

 

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