Solkyri’s Cranebrook drifts in like weather, soft, slow moving, and unpredictable in the way memory can be. I wasn’t familiar with the Sydney quartet before hearing this album, but Cranebrook felt like a quietly transformative experience.
On their website it states, “The quartet who are often celebrated for their powerful and moving post-rock anthems, are embarking on a new journey with their latest offering Cranebrook. This transformative release marks a temporary departure from their traditional and expansive sound towards a more nuanced and contemplative one that embraces intimacy, patience and minimalism.” That description feels accurate. This is a record that draws inward and leans into restraint, offering more by doing less.
Post-rock often leans hard into the cinematic or the emotionally declarative, but here, Solkyri take a different route. They trade scale for subtlety, channeling a more distilled kind of introspection that avoids the genre’s more overwrought instincts. This is music that understands that reflection rarely arrives in black and white terms. Instead, Cranebrook works in gradients, shades of grey that feel more honest, more lived-in.
The opener “Wherever We End Up Next” stretches past seven minutes but never drags. It’s gorgeously paced, with sections that reminded me of Arcade Fire if they were stripped of their bombast and left to wander through the quiet aftermath. There’s something deeply affecting about the way it evolves, instrumental, slow burning, and full of patience.
“I Guess I’ll Be Leaving Now” floats above the rest like a ghost. There’s an almost sacred quality to it, like an ascension you’re not supposed to witness. I couldn’t always identify what instruments were making the sounds. Guitars? Synths? Field recordings? That uncertainty felt like part of the magic. It’s a track that dissolves rather than ends.
By the time “Autumn Mould” arrived, a kind of emotional architecture had begun to form. The band toggles gracefully between ambient abstractions and moments of grounded, tactile beauty: cello, piano, small creaks of life slipping through the cracks. “1804” introduces some rhythmic propulsion with drums, while “You Coward! (Shambles II)” drapes complex melodic lines across its back like fading light. Closer “Where the Quiet Can Hide” is as mournful as it is lovely, folding into itself with a sense of unresolved peace.
Cranebrook is an album made with clarity and restraint, reflective without being indulgent. In a world that often demands noise and speed, Solkyri have chosen patience, and it suits them.
Discover Cranebrook on Spotify: