Collapse Under The Empire: The Sirens Sound

Hamburg, Germany’s Collapse Under The Empire have yet again written and produced another sonic post-rock/ambient album entitled “The Sirens Sound”. While previous Collapse Under The Empire releases stuck to the traditional post-rock strategy, “The Sirens Sound” takes more of an ambient and psychedelic approach, but it still has their post-rock roots. The listener may find his or herself bombarded by the distorted and delayed guitars one minute, similar to the noise a space shuttle makes during take-off, but the next minute the listener will be free floating in space. The post-rock genre is famous for quiet and loud time changes, but Collapse Under The Empire stray away from this technique and create something more distant, and not so traditional.

The most shocking thing about Collapse Under The Empire is that they are a duo. You can call them layering masters if you will, and in my personal opinion, that is exactly what they are. “The Sirens Sounds” starts off with the track of the same name, and as quoted by Collapse Under The Empire themselves, “The Sirens Sound is the most psychedelic recording we have ever created since our inception in 2007”. The album continues with the track “Grade Seperation” which is my favorite track off the album. The song starts off with an ambient glitch synthesizer effect, which recalls that of The Album Leaf, and then takes off into a full distorted melody.

One thing is for certain, Collapse Under The Empire play with heart, and it is heard throughout the first two tracks, as well as the last three tracks “Violet Skies”, “Beware/Lost”, and “A Different Complexion”. These last three tracks take a similar approach to the second track “Grade Seperation”, which leaves the title track as their most unique to date. One thing is for certain, Collapse Under The Empire makes post-rock listeners, or instrumental music fans in general, dance one minute and remain poised the next minute. The duo is still young in their career and have already made a name for themselves in the instrumental genre. I am very thrilled to hear what they come up with next!!!