Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - I Went to the Mountain (2025)

The Romanian post-rockers are one of my favorite bands making the melodic, guitar-heavy kind of the genre (can you tell by the number of times they already appeared on this blog?). And now as the blog is back and the band is back with a new album, we both meet so I can enjoy the well-crafted essence of the post-rock fun.

The band's fifth album shows their evolution towards more progressive sounds with the strong "inclination towards a barefaced, riff-led take on the music [the band] love". The artists also point at some post-metal and stoner elements in their compositions, but I'd say they are not that noticeable to me. I still feel like the focus on the melodies and the love for what the guitars can do is predominant in their music (even if it's slightly heavier). Good, that's what I like about them. 

There is one change I noticed and I don't like. The titles of the tracks (and the album as well, translating part of their head-scratching band name) are now in English. I'm not sure about that. I like the mystery the Romanian ones delivered each time I listened to their albums, but I guess the artists wanted to be more approachable for the "normal" listeners. Nevertheless, a solid album filled with well-balanced tracks.

I Went to the Mountain costs 10 USD.

Check: We Hold Each Other at Current 

Country: Romania

Genre: guitar post-rock

Label: dunk!records

Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - La Vale (2022)

Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - La Deal (2019)

Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - S​-​a Rezolvat. Nu Se Poate.(2017)

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Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - La Vale (2022)

The "Romanian post-rock band about going up mountains and enjoying oneself" (that mostly describes their iconic name) is back with more music! Their last album, La Deal, accompanied me when I was on my way to the last dunk!festival when the Romanians played as well; the new one, La Vale, made coming back from this year's dunk! easier.

And the two albums are really very much connected - not only the album covers suggest it, the first one's title translates to "Uphill", the second's to "Downhill". But the sound of La Vale doesn't feel like going down, really. The band is fluent in creating impressive and very guitar-oriented compositions that more often than not end with monumental crescendos (thus it is still more like going upwards than downwards imo). The music here feels heavy but also fast at the same time (which is so well-audible in Nu Mai Comandăm De La Ăștia), like a speeding train that can't brake so easily even if the driver wants to. Having said that, the Romanians' most characteristic ability is probably writing the instrumental composition in one of the most melodic ways I know within the genre.

La Vale costs 10 USD.

Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - La Deal (2019)

Check: Nu Mai Comandăm De La Ăștia

Country: Romania

Genre: guitar post-rock

Label: SWANBOY Music

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Borusiade - Fortunate Isolation (2020) EN

Miruna Boruzescu is already known to the blog's readers as a person who is able to combine DJ electronics with moody post-punk with heavier messages. It was like this on A Body and it's like this on the new album called exceptionally fittingly Fortunate Isolation.

The album is opened by a very gothic intro on keys that sound like church organs, but we are quickly invited to the electronic sounds. Sometimes more subtle, sometimes almost alerting and unnerving (as in Time (No Time)). It's not a common thing for electronic music artist to be able to generate such an atmosphere of constant danger, especially that it is done here also without vocals and poignant lyrics. Because those come later in When I Read the News Today, a track about all of us those weeks.

There's also some club electronics on this album, still decorated with pessimistic, post-punk aura though. As in Mirror Hall (The Relief). And finally there is the title track Fortunate Isolation. Would be good if this isolation now was so fortunate for everybody.

Fortunate Isolation costs 8 USD.

Borusiade - A Body (2018) EN

Check: Mirror Hall (The Relief)

Country: Romania/Germany

Genre: electronic post-punk
Label: Dark Entries Records

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Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - La Deal (2019) EN

Guitar post-rock in Romania is in good shape. Just recently I posted about the great album by Valerinne and now I had a pleasure to listen to the second album in the discography of Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - La Deal. The band, what's worth stressing, will soon be playing at the biggest Euopean post-rock gathering at the Dunk! Festival in Belgium.

So it's very guitar and very lively. The Romanians main focus is playing instrumental and diverse melodies with ever changing pace. It's well audible in Setraiti Sanatate, Serviciusor with its almost delicate first part and the second - filled with aggressive energy. Also Suprafata Utila offers some super interesting composition choices and wonderful atmosphere, especially that it is the only one track here designed for giving some rest. The band soon come back to their style in the raw-guitar-oriented Am Adus Bautura, Fetelor and the album's finish in impressive Vedeti Ca Asta E Lunga. Not bad for a band that was created as a post-rock parody.

And of course a photo with the mountains. After all their long name translates into "I was in the mountains and I liked it".

La Deal costs 9 USD.

Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - S​-​a Rezolvat. Nu Se Poate.(2017) EN

Check: Suprafata Utila

Country: Romania

Genre: guitar post-rock

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Valerinne - Desire (2019) EN

They play together for a while now and on their new album they seem to deny the law of post-rock music saying that you can't make instrumental music that is monumental for 100% of time. The Romanians with their album Desire show that it is possible and it sounds brilliant.

The new release is long (well over an hour) but nevertheless, it doesn't get a slightly less epic and spectacular even for a second. There's no matter if it's raw and aggressive epicness in Star from Below, monumentally drums-infused one in Earth from Above, or soothed down, crushing the audience with homogeneous dough of engaging post-rock in Hegemon. Perhaps for some it will be impossible to digest but for me it's the other way round, I'd gladly have more. Especially that when seen live, there are also visual effects making the whole even more spectacular.

Desire costs 7 EUR.

Check: Earth from Above

Country: Romania

Genre: epic post-rock

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Borusiade - A Body (2018) EN

Coming from Romania, Miruna Boruzescu is a DJ and electronic music artist who after an epic odyssey throughout Berlin's clubs, decided to release her own material as Borusiade. "A Body" is already a couple months old as it was published in March but to overlook such a good album would be a sin so better late than never.

The album's opened with "Cluster" that creates a unique atmosphere with ambient sounds slowly turning into dark and foggy disco where the industrial and very organic pulse forces to dance. This track can be treated as an introduction to the album's best - "Breathe". Engaging and really unsettling lyrics ("and when you think you got it, you think you're in control, the slightest thing can kill you, it wouldn't matter at all") are combined with mesmerizing music and Boruzescu's deep voice that fits it perfectly.

Meanwhile, in "Dormant" the artists reaches to spoken word to somewhat create a cold-wave atmosphere of anxiety enhanced by whispers dancing in the backgrounds. But with every minute of the album, the artist seems to succumb to her clubbing nature. "An Aquarian Feeling" and industrial "Silent" are not subtle beats anymore, it is the human resistance's discotheque to the fullest.

"A Body" costs 7 EUR.

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Modern Ghosts of the Road - Hwær Cwom (2017) EN

Modern Ghosts of the Road is an artistic nickname of Alexandru Das, Romanian musician from Bucharest who serves a dense dose of ambienting drone that from time to time reaches some epic altitudes as if it was flying through clouds towards space.

The album is accompanied by a fragment of Tomas Moore's poem "The Light of Other Days"  which, together with touching sound of Das' music, make the audience feel difficult to resist nostalgia and pain of longing for those couple of worth-experiencing moments we had. To be listened to with handkerchief close.

"Hwær Cwom" is available for 4 EUR.

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Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - S​-​a Rezolvat. Nu Se Poate.(2017) EN

There is a band, Red Sparowes, known for the habit of naming their post-rock compositions with really long titles, often whole paragraphs of text. A bit shorter are those proposed by the Romanian from Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut (literally: "I climbed the mountain and I loved it") And this is not the only original thing on their new album.

Many albums want to be read as a story, this one definitely is one. And quite uniquely, it is a story of a person, who came from countryside to the capital city, to Bucharest, and then... Yes, what happened then? The album title leaves no doubt. "S​-​a Rezolvat. Nu Se Poate" means as much as "Problem solved. Nothing can be done": the big city guest reaches the ceiling.

The leitmotif of the album is made from reappearing from time to time extracts taken from the Romanian subway announcements It takes us for a very well-planned journey. Not to be misunderstood, the music itself is also the post-rock top league. Even if you could separate the interesting idea behind the album and some original solutions, there'd still be great guitar music that can be both deafening, idle and melancholic. Just like the big city lights.

"S​-​a Rezolvat. Nu Se Poate" costs 9 USD.

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