SPERAMVS MELIORA // RESVRGET CINERIBVS by Through A Glass, Darkly
Release date: October 7, 2025Label: Desert Drone
People have written essays and given courses on how to make an impression with music especially when it comes to attention from labels and for reviews. When there is an inbox to trawl and aeons of music available two things always attract me first – the genre being listed somewhere, especially in the email title and the fact the band has taken their time to send the email. Once that has got me its time for the music to do the rest and Through A Glass, Darkly got me on all three counts. SPERAMVS MELIORA || RESVRGET CINERIBVS is my first exposure to the Austin, Texas five piece and it quickly became a sound that has captivated and moved me. For those in the realms of post-rock, ambient and doomgaze this is going to be one of the best to drop this year. I absolutely love it.
SPERAMVS MELIORA // RESVRGET CINERIBVS is 50 minutes over six tracks which range from floatation down a meandering stream to plunging over massive waterfalls. In these two extremes the band submerges the listener organically whilst making sure the experience is engaging and rewarding. At points I could feel my thoughts being brought to the fore and at others the music grabbed focus. Even though I was processing something else it was the music that put me there and it pulled itself back to focus when it wanted. Through A Glass, Darkly hits high points but avoids the cliched post-rock build up and crescendo. When it does push to the heavier moments, it’s a swell, the noise rises to greet you rather than plunging you in the deep end and overpowering. This allows songs like ‘That Severed Brightness’ to prolong the peak, it keeps rising and rising and as that initial jump from an ambient passage is significant enough without being excessive that the power keeps building and releasing.
While it brought to mind discovering This Will Destroy You and Mono it also is nothing like that. The fantastic interplay though is similar, the balance of presence and dynamism also has a lot of time for absence and space. It does respond best to being the centre of attention but I didn’t need to focus for the entire 50 minutes to be rewarded. The synth is ever present linking through all the songs and quiet moments whilst the traditional drums, bass and guitar are used to pull the lines of quiet and loud around the listener. I found that the louder this music and the darker the world the better this release got for me. With the coming out autumn it feels this album has fallen perfectly. As well as volume I could also drift to sleep in its embrace.
Post-rock looks to have been through enough cycles that it has settled and not everything has to be new or push another boundary. Enough influences can be combined that interesting material can be made which is familiar and fresh. SPERAMVS MELIORA // RESVRGET CINERIBVS is both those things. The sound is gorgeous, the atmosphere intoxicating and the rewards just continue to flow from start to finish and on repeat.
