Collapse under the Empire - Find a Place to Be Safe

  by Russell Ferguson

published: 27 / 1 / 2010

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Review

Collapse under the Empire have only been going since 2007 and are the brain child of German musicians Chris Burda and Matthew Jason, ‘Find a Place to Be Safe’ is their second album and has a very mature sound for a band that has only been going for two years. Breaking from the norm this band is an instrumental outfit that does what can best be described as alternative music. Their music ranges in sound from the likes of Nickleback to U2 and New Order. The band incite George Orwell’s authoritarian state, bu which I guess they mean '1984' or 'Animal Farm', as an influence for this album. As there are no lyrics, this makes it a more interesting idea to peruse and a less predictable affair. Collapse under the Empire say that the album was made without restrictions which may or may not be the case, but it has to be said that the songs do conform to what many would say is the standard format of any song, with verse, verse, chorus, verse and fade out. Some songs on 'Find a Place to Be Safe' do deviate from the formula but not enough to make it stand out as an obvious difference from what you expect to hear. If you are going to do an instrumental album then there are going to be obvious relationships and comparisons with film scores. It is hard to dissociate the two apart. What Collapse under the Empire have done is write rock type songs without lyrics, there is an obvious difference between the two and you do wait for the lyrics to jump in at certain times. Having said that this album is very pleasant affair and doesn’t offend too much the sensibilities of the listen. The opening track, ‘Capturing Moments', is a gentle and laidback introduction. From there the whole affair goes about at a similar pace with ‘Decay’ being a very typical sound for the album. ‘A Smell of Boiled Greens’ is about the only song that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the album. It has a dark and stumbling feel to it and has much in common with the Cure’s ‘A Reflection.’ And it by far the most interesting song on the album but way too short at 1 minute 37 seconds. There isn’t one song that stands out on this album as being unique but maybe that is because there are no lyrics and in that sense the album is in danger of being a bland affair with many of the songs following the same format. Somehow that doesn’t happen and it’s hard to pinpoint why. Maybe the songs themselves have enough variety that they are interesting to listen to. My only grip with the album is that it isn’t adventureous enough in its exploration of trying to convey feeling and emotion. With an influence like George Orwell there is much to explore.

Track Listing:-

1 Captured Moments
2 Crawling
3 Find A Place To Be Safe
4 Tranquillity
5 Angle Of Incidence
6 Decay
7 Far To The Past
8 A Smell Of Boiled Greens
9 Intelligence
10 Conscious Of Thirty-Nine
11 Take A Shot On Me

Band Links:-

http://collapseundertheempire.com/
https://www.facebook.com/collapseunder
https://www.youtube.com/user/collapsee
https://plus.google.com/10165759186287
http://www.last.fm/de/music/Collapse+U