2023 was quite the year for rising UK post-black metal bands Copse and Hidden Mothers, with debut appearances for both at Arctangent festival being one of the highlights of the year. Challenging that pinnacle Copse also signed to Church Road Records and released second EP Old Belief | New Despair to continued critical acclaim. 2023 didn’t see any new music from Hidden Mothers but they continued to establish themselves as one of the north of England’s go to bands for support slots covering multiple genres as well as numerous headline tours and completing the recording of it’s debut album with the indomitable Joe Clayton.
Having just announced a joint tour of numerous counties of England, Echoes and Dust asked Copse (Phil Vernon, guitar, Rob Collier, bass and Ryan Westwood, drums) and Liam Knowles (bass) of Hidden Mothers to pick three albums that left a mark on them which they carried into their respective bands.
Catch Hidden Mothers and Copse on their February tour:
15/02/24 Brighton Electric, Brighton
16/02/24 The Black Heart, London
17/02/24 The Moon, Cardiff
18/02/24 Devil’s Dog, Birmingham
TRNA – Earthcult
Phil – Guitarist (Copse)
I’ve gone for a pretty recent influence with this one. TRNA is a post-black metal trio from St Petersburg, Russia. I was actually introduced to this record by our other guitarist Craig and it immediately grabbed me and hasn’t really left my rotation since. Right from the off it throws you headfirst into a “wall of noise”-esque deep vat of blast beats and moody atmosphere with reverb and layers so thick and luscious you could almost swim in it. The melodies are beautiful and haunting throughout and the way the songs ebb and flow and transport you to another realm so effortlessly is a real masterclass of song writing. I think the influence of this record and the records by Olhava and Somn, which feature members of Trna, have had on some of the “bigger” melodic sections in Copse songs is pretty apparent. I couldn’t recommend their entire back catalogue more but Earthcult is a real highlight to start with. Dive in and bathe in its beauty.
Mastodon – Crack the Skye
Rob – Bassist (Copse)
Crack the Skye opened my eyes to where you can go with an album musically. It has such an intense vibe to it and it’s heavy as hell yet parts of it remind me of Rush and early Rainbow. I love the way it chops and changes from proggy technical sections to massive open choruses to obnoxiously heavy sleazy riffs. The guitars are playing so many cool eastern sounding scales throughout and they like to build up really complex textures with different guitar and bass parts which we tend to do a lot. They don’t shy away from a long song either or throwing in an outrageous guitar solo because they can. It’s an absolute ride and a joy to listen to.
Glassjaw – Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Silence
Ryan – Drummer (Copse)
Probably the first album I heard that crossed a lot of styles for me. Chaotic, heavy, and delicately beautiful when it needs to be. Sammy’s driving single kick work is still something I take influence from today, and the little single-stroke snare additions in beats to break a drum part up. I’m a big fan of rhythms that switch to having you nod on the offbeat and this album is full of fun little sections like that. It’s an album I can listen to today and still hear new little hooks that have no purpose being where they are, or as good as they are. I don’t think it’ll ever be knocked off the pedestal of one of my top five albums of all time.
Deafheaven – Sunbather
Liam Knowles – Bass (Hidden Mothers)
It’s safe to say that this band wouldn’t exist without this album. For almost all of us it was our first exposure to anything adjacent to black metal, or at the very least it was the album that made us more open to that genre. That’s likely true of a lot of people – black metal can seem quite extreme and impenetrable, but also a little silly and gimmicky. For an album like Sunbather to come along absolutely dripping with class and style, whilst also being relatively accessible; it was a total game changer. ‘Dream House’ in particular is just a perfect example of how you can make extreme music shimmer and shine without losing any of the emotional impact, and that’s something we’ve tried to carry into our song writing since day one.
Explosions In The Sky – The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place
Liam Knowles – Bass (Hidden Mothers)
We’re not a post-rock band by any stretch of the imagination, but we’re big believers in the use of complementary textures to fill out our sound. Heaviness doesn’t just come from distortion and screaming; it can come from a combination of subtle layers that might not seem like much in isolation but hit extremely hard as part of a larger texture. There are lots of bands that do this incredibly well, but Explosions In The Sky have always been our reference band when incorporating post-rock elements into our sound. The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place is a masterpiece and still holds up against its peers despite recently having its 20th(!!!) anniversary.
Thrice – The Alchemy Index
Liam Knowles – Bass (Hidden Mothers)
We are aware that this is cheating as it’s technically four albums in one, but we are willing to fight anyone who has a problem with that. A large part of our identity as a band is the way we move between different dynamics instrumentally and vocally. We never set out to be a straight-up ‘heavy’ band and always wanted to include more delicate instrumental passages and clean vocals alongside the more cathartic heavier sections. The blueprint for how you achieve a diverse sonic and dynamic palette is, without a doubt, this record (and pretty much every Thrice record, if we’re being honest). The way tracks like ‘Broken Lungs’ move between moods and dynamics, or how the Fire and Water EPs manage to contrast metallic post-hardcore and ambient/electronica – it’s a masterclass for bands like us.
