There’s been a strong run of post-rock coming across the desk lately — a wave of epic, beautifully built records from bands clearly at their peak. Sagor Som Leder Mot Slutet sit right in the middle of it.
The Swedish instrumental four-piece have been at this since 2014, put out three full-lengths entirely on their own, and now return with “IV“, their heaviest chapter to date and the first record released through proper label partnerships — Dunk!Records in Europe and A Thousand Arms in the US. Out April 24, 2026.
The band — Andreas Holm (bass), David Fuchs and Jonas Wahlgren (guitars), and Martin Mileros (drums) — all came out of bands that had previously run their course.
“When one of those bands came to an end the opportunity appeared to get together and do something different,” they explain. From the start, the direction was clear.
“We were pretty certain that we wanted to do a more atmospheric but also heavier music than before. Our collective sources of inspiration mashed at a really good point, really creating synergistic effects.”
The three albums that followed each took a different angle.
Debut “I” (2016) was a forest-inspired DIY release that ended up on Post Rock Essentials’ best-of-year list, got nominated for Best Newcomer and Best Album, and later turned up on a best-of-decade list.
“II” (2018) moved toward the sea and featured violin work from Malmö Opera concert-maestro Wojtek Mileros, was tracked at Studio Gröndahl and mixed/mastered by Magnus Lindberg of Cult of Luna. In 2019 the band scored Mattias Olsson’s short film “Iris” for Midvinterfilm, which won Best Narrative Short at international festivals.
“III” (2022), again with Lindberg and recorded at South Sound Studio, went wider and more synthesized — existential silence, cosmic vastness — and led to a Dunk! Festival slot that had reviewers calling them the surprise of the weekend. Every release has landed on top 20 post-rock/metal year-end lists along the way.
They’ve shared stages with PG Lost, The Ocean, and others in that orbit.
So “IV” is a fourth chapter — connected to the previous three but standing on its own. The band are upfront about how the writing process has changed over twelve years.
“Each chapter is more thematicly different than pure progress. But ofcourse playing together we always evolve and want to try new things — you get inspiration from different sources and we all go through different stages of life.
In the beginning the writing process was very intense and fast — as you get older the process takes a while longer because of life. Sometimes we go though periods rehearsing and writing a lot and some periods we meet up and someone has grown a full beard since last time.” The honest version of being a band for over a decade.
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The payoff: “And maybe that’s the escape — the new music itself when you need it, no matter the album chapter.”
What changed on this one was the weight. The band decided collectively to go heavier, which meant different tunings and a different center of gravity.
“The heaviest parts of our world as we know it is in the magmatic core, in the bedrock and mountains,” they say. “On the other hand we didn’t want to leave out tenderness and emotional parts. Hopefully we found a good balance.” That balance — darkness against fragility, weight against melody — has always been the Sagor operating principle. On “IV” the weight side of the scale has simply been loaded up.
The production team reflects that shift. Martin Mileros produced, Piotr Turek of Telepathy mixed, Machine (US) mastered, and Calle Fäldt tracked drums at Southsound Studios.
Handing mixing duties to Turek after three Magnus Lindberg records wasn’t a clean break so much as a recalibration.
“We could definitely feel the common ground musically and that helped us to work together, both with Piotr and Magnus. For this album Piotr sometimes introduced something new things and sometimes we caught him off guard with an idea. An all together prolific experience. They do have a bit different working methods and approach which has been beneficial for each of the albums.”
The label side of “IV” is the most externally-focused the band have ever been. “For our first three albums we did it all by ourselves,” they explain. “For ‘IV’ we collaborated with both Dunk!Records and A Thousand Arms for a more internationally touch, to reach more of our fans abroad. Together with both Dunk and A1KA we felt we could make it happen.”
First single “Magma” arrived in March with a video by Rasmus Fritzon. The full album hits April 24, with vinyl already in the presses.
If “IV” has a center of gravity, it’s “Rot”. The word translates to root, and the band place it as the song that both stands apart and ties the record together.
“It could symbolise the root of the mountains, but also emotional roots or the core force that keep the world together. Like the world around us, and our own lives, it contains disharmony and uncertainty, crushing and overwhelming parts but also moments of clarity and enthusiasm. It’s also one of the first songs written for the album and has evolved to get quite an emotional hold of all of us.” Elsewhere: “You can hear it in the rawness of ashes in Aska, in the ambience of Karg and in the more heavy rhythmic progressive parts that really bring home the earthy raw mountainscape.”
Asked whether “IV” belongs to the same narrative that began with the first three records or breaks away from it, the band land on both at once.
“It does in a way continue our story but it’s also a separate chapter. If you put the albums next to each other you could definitely find a connecting line that stretches from one to the other, but there are also differences that make them stand as individual chapters. That is how we think about our creative process — presenting different chapters that you may connect, if you want to.”
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Endings are a Sagor signature. The closing tracks across all four records share a theme of loss and emotional or physical parting — they act as the final page of each chapter. “One of the things that we have always strived for is to finish each chapter,” the band say.
“This time it’s perhaps even more tangible if you look at the title of the song and the spoken part in it.”
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