Good day, friends!

I guess.

I mean, after all, it is Monday. And as we all know, the Iron Sheik (R.I.P.) would probably have had some choice words to say about that on Twitter (R.I.P.).

In typical Monday fashion, it’s time to play catch-up from last week. Specifically, there was a brand new album released last Friday that I was planning to share with you all, but then — well — you know.

That new release comes to us from Washington (D.C.)’s Educated Owls, a name that may seem familiar to you from a handful of compilations that have been featured on this site over the past couple of years.

And as an added bonus, we’ll also check out the latest (albeit coming up upon two years since it was first released) from Austin (TX)’s Glassing, who also may be familiar to you from a couple previous releases we had discussed.

 

Educated Owls – The Fires of Dead Stars (self-released, 20 March 2026)

 

Glassing – From the Other Side of the Mirror (Pelagic Records, 26 April 2024)

 

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The new album by Educated Owls — which in a way sounds almost redundant, until a bit of research reveals that contrary to widely-held beliefs, these traditional avian symbols of wisdom are in fact of rather average intelligence (if not worse!), so an educated one would actually be an anomaly — features eleven tracks spanning roughly two-thirds of an hour.

What the project may lack in vocality is more than made up for in well-crafted post-metal compositions, for which the creator has dipped deep into the inkwell of shoegaze when it comes to blending the varied colors and textures of sound upon the canvas. Healthy doses of static and noise in the background; here and there a slight tinge of that old-timey film-projector waveriness effect, almost enough to border upon uncanny valley territory. Heavily overdriven guitars that simultaneously threaten to overwhelm the senses while also inducing a state of dreamlike atmosphere.

The noisy and wavery elements are best highlighted in opening track “The Everlasting Nothing,” while the heaviness seems to reach a peak in the antepenultimate and penultimate “The Violent Take it by Force” and “Ecological Serial Killers” (respectively), while in total contrast, the dreamy and atmospheric really shines in closer “The Afterglow is Brilliant.”

 

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Fans of prior Glassing releases will probably already be expecting a similar blend of post-metal, post-rock, shoegaze, dreampop, with the addition of angry hardcore shouting. 2024’s From the Other Side of the Mirror, ten tracks long and also right around that forty-ish minute mark, should more than satisfactorily meet those expectations. From spacey-jangly guitar leads to crushingly-heavy rhythms, blackened screeches to deep growls to reverby melodic chanting and back.

At its heaviest, the material practically pushes into straight up blackened-death (e.g. “Defacer”), or blackened-noise (“As My Heart Rots”), or blackened hardcore (“Circle Down”), but then can turn right around with the minimal droney pulsation of “Sallow” or the ethereal softness of “The Kestrel Goes.”

 

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The Fires of Dead Stars is out now digitally (here), while you can find From the Other Side of the Mirror on digital/CD/vinyl (here).
 

 

Educated Owls: Bandcamp
 
Glassing: website | Bandcamp
Pelagic Records: website | Bandcamp