ninehertz

Wren are a known quantity in the UK underground - they've been around more than a decade and have proven their quality live, on record and in splits with Irk and Slabdragger. They could continue on that trajectory quite happily as far as we're concerned, but they've signed to Church Road Records and one listen to Black Rain Falls and you know they've taken a step up, aimed for the stars and roared past them. This is a defining success all round.

Take Flowers of Earth - Neurosis-ly sparse, the space a cavernous arena for the post-metal to expand and echo. This is the opening track on Wren's first album in five years, and they just causally lay down something as good as you'll hear in this sound anywhere around nowadays. It is a statement, an affirmation of what we knew Wren could be, and then some. Betrayal of the Self is equally good, but arriving from a different angle, more concise and with a prickly mood, Wren's noise rock persona coming to the fore wonderfully. Those two characters come together across the album, a seamless amalgamation of styles, perhaps most spectacularly on the emotional Precede the Flint.

You'll find no better proof that there is still room for post-metal to innovate and grow in 2025 than Black Rain Falls. It was both recorded in England and mixed back home in California by Scott Evans of Kowloon Walled City, an apt collaboration and benchmark for Wren who have inhabited their own carefully curated space for themselves in post-metal, noise and doom over the last few years. This is Wren's biggest step forward so far, and it has the strength and songs to push them to recognition beyond the UK underground that it has already conquered.