Artist Spotlight: Collapse Under The Empire

Since reviewing Collapse Under The Empire's last effort, I hadn't realized that they were working on a new album to release this year. However, Fragments Of A Prayer is coming this fall, and the band is in full recording force. For example, the guys of Collapse released a new song in anticipation of the album, just to keep fans satiated until autumn. "Dragonfly" has a bit of a faster, progressive feel than anything off of Shoulders & Giants did, which is a nice change for the band, as the last release was set into darker, more chaotic post-rock. The track actually feels like something God Is An Astronaut would release on an upcoming album, which is a potential reason I'm as partial to "Dragonfly" as I am. However, I think the track will do some good in keeping fans held over until Fragments is released. If you're excited for some echoing, quick-paced post-rock, take a listen to "Dragonfly" and eagerly await the release of Fragments Of A Prayer with me.

You can download "Dragonfly" for free from Collapse Under The Empire's own site.

Album Review: Collapse Under The Empire - Shoulders & Giants

A fantastic mix of hopeful, dark, and anarchic post-rock and instrumental music, Collapse Under The Empire hails from Hamburg, Germany. Their music embodies a variety of big-name bands in instrumental music, notably God is an Astronaut, Mogwai, and Sigur Ros, as well as Explosions in the Sky and 65daysofstatic, and each of these influences actually appears in this album, as well as throughout their earlier works.

The second track on the album, "Giants", carries with it a bit of a more murky feel, opening with synths and tonal drum hits, contrasting sharp staccatos with flowing, minor-keyed legatos, and eventually a light, angelic keyboard line. As the song progresses, the drums help to bring the song along, and a reverbed guitar brings another deep and melancholy element to the track, which begins to build up with a final addition of bass. The keyboard actually leads the melody, with sadly crooning guitars providing most of the chord structure, and a moving drum line akin to God Is An Astronaut helps to provide a strong sense of tempo variety. As the song progresses to its final chorus, all amps are turned up to 11, and the guitars scream depressive lines of their own as the song ends in chaos.