By Jase Walker
Continuing my journey of eating good on post-rock for 2025, I land back in the familiar venue of De Helling to lap a but more of the genres finest with This Will Destroy You. But wait, there’s more! I also get to witness one of my absolute favourite bands ever in this space with the pair in Nordic Giants!
Okay I won’t lie to you, Nordic Giants are huge favourites of mine and I’ve seen them so many times over the years but now I’m living in The Netherlands and I figured I’d only ever see them at ArcTanGent again in future! But nevermind, I get to enjoy 30 sublime minutes in Utrecht tonight and I’ll take what I can get.
Admittedly I don’t think Billy Idols ‘Rebel Yell’ suits a walk on for Nordic Giants much but I’d be lying if I said they didn’t have a sense of humour. It’s notable that their portable screen they use now has animated eyes and horns. They’ve clearly stepped up the opening animation to their performance with ever more intense lighting too.
Opening with ‘Philosophy Of Mind’ starts an unbelievably strong commentary on the modern use of technology and pop culture as a method of separation of the social media persona and what hides behind the mask. Nordic Giants are no strangers to cutting social commentary through artistry and their medium is incredible to witness.
Any time I’ve talked about Nordic Giants to anyone I always go into detail about the incredible mix of audible and visual to create a unique live show. ‘Mechanical Minds’ using Charlie Chaplin’s Hitler Speech to punctuate the loss of humanity while playing a video that shows a robotic humanoid showing deep regard for the human heart. It’s also incredible how quickly the venue has filled out since Nordic Giants took the stage, and fantastic that such a strong turnout will be witness to this sort of experience.
‘Faceless’ with its feature of Alex Hedley and complimentary harsh video reflecting constant consumption and desensitizing of the world is another scathing social commentary on the numbness of the modern world. ‘Together’ moves me to tears as it does every single time I hear it, the combination of a beautiful song alongside the incredible video that pays homage to a history of incredible animation always blindsides me and solidifies why I adore Nordic Giants so much. Absolutely mind-blowing show again.
And for the headliner, This Will Destroy You doing a set to a packed out venue. Exactly what you want to see a band play to, and not just that, witnessing their self-titled album in full.
There is rarely something more satisfying than listening to a post-rock band like TWDY build the subtle layering and atmosphere for the next song in the set, often beginning with reversed samples and soft, reverb soaked chords. This is not music to go apeshit to, this is music to get lost in and wrapped up like a warm, familiar blanket and drift away on. The beautiful layering, the intricate yet slow building towards the peak, all the hallmarks of post-rock are here but masterfully woven together by TWDY. There’s barely any lighting focused on the band themselves, mostly shrouded in darkness or appearing to be animated silouettes which seems to be fairly common within this particular subgenre.
It’s noticeable how the crowd here for TWDY have been completely silent too, this sort of music often used a lot of quiet parts so being able to enjoy them without some tosser loudly chatting over it isn’t taken for granted. I suppose this speaks towards the artistic elements of post-rock as the band themselves consider themselves almost as a persona-non-Grata element of the show. We’re here to focus exclusively on the music part and the overall experience of the light show and feel of the show and this is absolutely where TWDY excells. I feel like I’m fully lost in the sauce of one long continuous song but I need to stress that this isn’t a bad thing. A true musical journey that is brilliantly curated to take the audience on a trip through their back catalogue of chilled and dreamy music.
As we approach the end of their set I am ever more thankful that I get to witness the beautiful music of bands like This Will Destroy You. Post-rock is genuine such a fascinating genre of music that is stuffed full of instrumental bands that express themselves in such unique ways and TWDY is a massive part of that. Tonight has been a wonderful show that puts an emphasis on the celebration of their catalogue of brilliant music. What a truly incredible experience this has been to see these headline a show like this.
Post-rock is the unsung hero of progressive-adjacent sub-genres and This Will Destroy You are amongst the best.
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