Album Review: We Lost The Sea – A Single Flower (Bird’s Robe / Dunk / Translation Loss / New Noise)

Australian post-rock band We Lost the Sea will release their fifth studio album ‘ A Single Flower’ on July 4th, 2025, via Bird’s Robe (Australia), Dunk (Europe), Translation Loss (USA) & New Noise (China).

I don’t think it’s arguable these days that We Lost the Sea are one of the finest post rock bands in the entire world. It’s certainly not a secret anymore. Yet it’s been five years since their last album, ‘Triumph & Disaster’ and the post scene has grown to such an extent that it’s seeming kind of bloated. In most cases, the thought having to consume even more would off-putting, expect this is We Lost the Sea and there’s always room for what they have to offer. Especially when their music is so much more than just ‘post rock’ and it’s impossible to talk about this new album without focusing on how it makes you feel and trust me, you will feel.

Six tracks long, but six behemoth tracks, A Single Flower is We Lost the Sea at their most textured, not only experimenting with post as a genre, but experimenting with their definition of it. While there is much here that feels post rock, it shimmers and shines in unexpected ways, especially when the contrast between dramatic, miserable melody meets energised, vibrant rock speed and intensity. The word that comes to mind is fascinating.

I don’t think there’s a band in the world capable of grabbing the attention and holding it so significantly while keeping things so simple and subtle as We Lost the Sea do on If They Had Hearts. Where a piece of raw melody is played over and over again on a guitar for over two minutes. Then, bit by bit, more instruments join in, the tempo heats up, and it becomes a much nosier beast altogether. There’s an urgency at the end that is as terrifying as it is enthralling, and then just like that, it dissipates and for around two minutes, it drifts away in ambient style.

For most bands, that would have been their album epic, but We Lost the Sea are not most bands and they, brazenly, push the post rock bar to even greater heights with A Dance with Death. A gorgeous piece, filled with drama, yet not to the extent that it overshadows everything else. Across its ten-plus minute runtime, it creates a turbulent level of emotion that will have most simply sitting back and marvelling at it. It is so special, but so is Everything Here is Black and Blinding, an inspiring effort.

At a creative high, and showing off more of their experimental side, while taking the listener on an elaborate journey, this is We Lost the Sea at their darkest, but also at their lightest. The band, even as an instrumental band, know how to express themselves, and this is one of their clearest messages, being ‘a war cry against evil’ and delivered in electrifying fashion, even if it is more of a grower than an instant hit.

It’s post rock though, We Lost the Sea’s brand of post rock, so it should go without saying that there can be no ‘one and done’. This is music that demands time, patience, and multiple plays, rewarding the listener in so many ways, least of all the fact that it makes you feel.

Speaking of feeling though, Bloom (Murmurations at First Light) is a staggering showcase of peaks and valleys. We Lost the Sea taking us to the highest of heights in delightfully heavy fashion, then dropping us down to the lowest of melodically charged lows. It’s enough to give you butterflies, and while the ascents can be sudden, there’s nothing to fear, this is one of the most comforting tracks on the album.

I want to say that it’s my favourite track on the record, but The Gloaming is next, and it features the incomparable Sophie Trudeau of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. If that wasn’t enough, there’s also Blood Will Have Blood and that is a very special track.

Let’s get into both, as much as this review can. The former is only around three-minutes long, which is absurdly short for this band, but is staggeringly cinematic in tone, and rightfully, puts the violin of Sophie Trudeau front and centre. Trust me, if you’ve not cried yet, you will here. It’s three-ish minutes of beauty. As for the latter, it’s a mighty closing track, over twenty-seven minutes in length and as heart-wrenching as it is heart-warming, as vigorous as it is versatile, brazenly buoyant at times, sullen at others, and fascinatingly intense throughout. It’s unforgettable and feels a quarter of its length.

Words fail me. I hope I’ve expressed the determined detail that We Lost the Sea have put into this album and how, at its core, it’s an album with an incredible amount of feeling in it. Everyone will get something different out of it, but I suspect, regardless, that we will all be in agreement that it’s so special. Every time this band releases an album, they change the post rock world and that continues to be the case with A Single Flower.

We Lost the Sea – A Single Flower Track Listing:

1. If They Had Hearts
2. A Dance with Death
3. Everything Here is Black and Blinding
4. Bloom (Murmurations at First Light)
5. The Gloaming (feat. Sophie Trudeau of Godspeed You! Black Emperor)
6. Blood Will Have Blood

Links

LinkTree | Website | Facebook | Instagram | X