It's actually slightly jarring that Collapse Under the Empire's Find a Place to Be Safe spans a whopping 11 tracks. It's an adjective only appropriate since this is an instrumental post-rock endeavor along the lines of the Mercury Program and Mogwai.

CUTE (good work, fellas) consequently keep their songs within reason (and so that Safe doesn't end up as a droning three-hour album). The whole thing stays tucked just under the 50-minute mark, with the German act employing a more consistently enlivened post-rock style where the moments come with an immediacy. "Crawling" involves a crisp interlay of phlegmy, reverberating guitars laid out above splashy percussion and a steady piano hastening. "Conscious of Thirty Nine" bears some more metallic, skittering electronic elements that recall a slower, less frenetic 65daysofstatic.

But it doesn't mean they don't know how to build a pretty decent climax. It should catch attention drifters in "Tranquility," which cuts away to a burst of emotional aching while a colorful, rhythmic line of keyboard bubbles adds a curious texture to it. "Intelligence" cascades through elegant waves of stop/start at its center.

Find a Place to Be Safe isn't the most compelling or mind-blowing feat of its scene or style, but it's definitely not without its moments as described above. Fairweather post-rock fans may want to look for the better clientele, but exhaustive collectors might find Collapse Under the Empire quite redeeming. (And the band have already released the followup, which we'll hopefully get to by the end of the year.)

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Captured Moments
Crawling
Take a Shot on Me