Premiering today is a live session from Scotland’s Beneath a Steel Sky, featuring four tracks from their January debut album Cleave, released on Ripcord Records. It’s a massive and immersive set that captures the atmospheric weight and emotional charge of their post-metal sound.
The band recorded the session in March 2025 at Beetroot Studios with Stuart MacLeod, who had previously tracked drums for the album. The live video was filmed and edited by Calum McMillan. The setting isn’t just incidental—it plays a crucial role in the feel and fidelity of the session.
As the band puts it: “With this session, we wanted to capture the live sound of these songs as faithfully as possible and present them in their rawest form. Beetroot Studios was the ideal space for that. The live room sounds incredible, and having previously worked with Stuart MacLeod on the drum tracking for the album, it felt like the right place to capture what we do naturally.”
The session opens with Quetzalcoatlus, followed by Cyclical dunt, Everyone you’ve ever known, and The infinite silence that follows the absolute truth. These selections mirror the emotional core of Cleave, a record that mixes glacial post-rock ambiance with dense, tectonic riffs. The material draws influence from bands like Isis, Cult of Luna, and Aereogramme, but maintains a character rooted in Scottish bleakness.
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Formed during the uncertainty of the 2020 lockdown, Beneath a Steel Sky began as an instrumental project before growing into a full band. That origin is still felt in their compositions—there’s patience, introspection, and long-form emotional tension across the seven tracks on Cleave.
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The full album, recorded by the band with drums laid down by Stuart MacLeod at Beetroot Studios, was mixed by Ian McCall and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege. All artwork was created by Sandy Wilson.
Songs like The becoming and Vanguard explore slow-burning crescendos, while tracks such as Everyone you’ve ever known hit with a sense of personal confrontation wrapped in heavy atmosphere. It’s a must listen for fans of eclectic post metal and post rock in 2025.
While this live session only includes a portion of the album, it encapsulates the weight of the whole. What’s heard here is less a reproduction and more a live re-articulation—unfiltered, close to the source, and recorded without studio polish.
