The sophomore full-length from Post Animal, Forward Motion Godyssey unfolds with a frenetic momentum, mercurial and unhinged and gloriously volatile. In a bold leap forward both artistically and sonically, the Chicago-based alt-prog band sets their existential questioning to a wildly kinetic sound, mining inspiration from genres as divergent as electronic and psych-rock and—at one particularly sublime point—achieving both stoner-metal brutishness and dreamy R&B elegance in the very same instant. At turns rhapsodic and unsettling, meditative and chaotic, the result is anything but subtle: a body of work that beckons deep involvement from the listener, a richly layered experience primed to leave its audience indelibly transported.
With its maximalist arrangements and larger-than-life scale, Forward Motion Godyssey came to life in a fittingly majestic location: a mountain-adjacent home in Big Sky, Montana, lent to the band by a friend of Reyes. Holing up in the house for eight days—after spending 36 hours stranded in Fargo due to a devastating snowstorm—Post Animal took full advantage of the splendor of their environment. “We recorded one of the songs around sunset, and set up everything so we could look out over the mountains as this crazy pink sun-glow fell over them,” Hirshland recalls. “The whole place was just a really inspiring space to play around in.”