Like all great instrumental post-rock records, Collapse Under The Empire’s newest LP crushes your heart and soul with tidal wave after tidal wave of sounds and emotions. From the dense and the layered to the minimal and the simple; from these angelic, victorious heights to these brooding low-key moments of anxiety, loss and failure, to all manner of in-between musical and emotional dynamics – ‘The Fallen Ones‘ is a touching, heart-warming, yet also gut-wrenching release. But it is also one that’s consistently beautifully bleak throughout, something that instrumental music like this can be so adept in creating.

On their latest full-length, from its magnificent start to its bone-chilling finish, Germany’s Collapse Under The Empire wonderfully recapture what made their 2011 magnum opus ‘Shoulders & Giants‘ – so goddamn special in the first place. The main duo behind Collapse Under The Empire – Martin Grimm and Chris Burda – are clearly on top of their musical game. If anything, their music isn’t about technical prowess nor that of instrumental wizardry. For it’s more about creating sweeping scores to deep fictional art pieces and these surreal other-worldly events of a dystopian world. Simply put, what this band may lack (or, at least, not really care to show) in terms of jaw-dropping skill and instrumental chops, they more than make up for that tenfold with great composing abilities, pure imagination and stunning vision.