THE COLLIBRO

It's very strange that nobody yet has bothered to review this fantastic album, but alright, let me be the first. "The Collibro" is the third release of this Danish outfit. This album presents us the wonderful amalgam of post-rock ambiences and ingenious and progressive arrangements, with a bit of contemporary Alternative influences, used in moderate amounts to add a special spice. With most of the music on the album being complex and intensely active, band has cleverly used relaxing post-rock background and short interludes to avoid overtiring of the listener. As a result, the album has great flow and is a joy to listen throughout. It's very hard to pick highlights here, because albums is so uniformly great but if I had to choose one, I think it would be "Recalling The Color", brilliantly arranged song, with both dynamics and beauty.

To sum it up, this album has a broad appeal. Fans of Post Rock, The Mars Volta, Radiohead, Muse, or similar bands will certainly enjoy it, which means quite a big mainstream commercial perspective today. Apart from them, any lover of challenging rock music should at least try this. There's little chance of disappointment here. For me, it's one of the Top releases of 2010, and the work that deserves to be much more widely appreciated than it is now. 5 big stars, without any question.

I'm generally not the greatest fan of the modern "progressive" alt rock put out by bands such as Muse, but on this record, Lis er Stille manage to push through what made that genre boring and stagnant. Every song is complex, layered and well thought out. The approach to composition seems more classically based than other heavy rock, but the rock is still very much there. Of particular note are Martin Byrialsen's organic sounding keyboards, which provide ethereal yet fitting textures to the music which contrast nicely with the guitar and drums as well as pleasant and appropriate piano interludes during the middle of longer songs. The album feels like it has a concept or narrative of some sort, although I have yet to work out what it is. Overall a fantastic album particularly for fans of progressive hard rock or alternative rock.

LIS ER STILLE are a band out of Denmark who play an epic and dramatic sounding brand of Prog Rock bringing MUSE to mind at times. A little too commercial sounding for me plus I'm not big on the drumming and a lesser extent to the vocals. This just wasn't something I got a lot of enjoyment out of despite the obvious musical talents on display. Listed as Post-Rock I didn't hear a lot of that either, at least on this album. I did hear a song from their debut that sounded a lot different the music here which sounds more modern than that song. A four piece band with two of them playing melodica. Some guest chorus vocals on several tracks giving an even more epic vibe to the proceedings.

This clocks in at close to 67 minutes and begins with "All The Blood" with the dramatic chorus vocals and drums. Explosive sounds 2 minutes in. "Send In The Scouts" sounds really good to start and the vocals arrive after 2 minutes. Some nice guitar in the extended instrumental. Almost doom-like sounds 6 minutes in as the vocals return. So epic. "Recalling The Color" is uptempo with relentless drums. It settles after 2 minutes but not for long. Plenty of piano will follow before another calm after 5 minutes. Fragile vocals after 6 1/2 minutes then it kicks back in a minute later.

"Like A Common Wave" is a short and reserved vocal track. "Shards Of The Ending" has lots of atmosphere before the vocals join in around 2 minutes. It then explodes with pounding drums and I'm not into this. The drums will calm right down along with the song. It builds again after 7 minutes. "Through The Quests Of Your Designs" opens with the drums and vocals standing out. It turns fuller after 2 minutes but then settles back. Drums are the constant as the tempo continues to change. "Break Or seal" is a short piece with fragile vocals and piano.

"The Real Children" has a deeper sound to it including the vocals. A nice change and the bass stands out for once. Back to their usual sound after 2 minutes though including the vocals. "The Painted" has reserved vocals with piano and atmosphere. It starts to pick up until it's high energy before 3 1/2 minutes. Not a fan but then it settles right down like earlier as themes are repeated. "Behold The Remnant Parts Of Me" is another short piece with piano and vocals.

"In The Seed" has exotic sounds throughout as it blends into "Beneath The Broken Country" where piano and reserved vocals take over quickly. Multi-vocals after a minute as that dramatic vibe kicks in again. Drums and atmosphere follow then guitar. It's kind of experimental after 3 minutes then it builds.

So a lot of people are into this band and I get why but this album just isn't my thing.