Collapsar – Integers (Escape Artist)
By Jay Snyder
November 13, 2007

Here is the second record from Louisiana’s advanced weapons platform Collapsar that features former members of the sorely underrated Icepick Revival. Their first record was a staggering collection of manic riffs, time changes and jackhammer beats with enough varying styles injected into the performance to make your head spin after only jamming the first track. The best part of it was that it wasn’t an aimless instrumental clatter as this trio found a way to pack tasteful hooks and melodies all throughout the album’s 8 songs. Here the band trim the track list down to 6 tunes that are sharper and even more focused than the last outing.

This is simply one of the most captivating instrumental records I’ve heard in a longtime. These guys have outdone themselves with every aspect of “Integers”. The twin guitar attack hammers out riff after riff of explosive math-metal that never dwells on any part too long to get stale but refuses to phase out hooks after one run in order to make sure things stick with you. They season this attack with the occasional mind-melting solo or clean break to add on an extra layer of chaos. The fantastic drumming of Brett Judice glues everything together as he creates a fearsome torrent of manic beats all over this album. His patterns are anything but textbook and he rides out the variety of guitar shredding with a performance that covers everything from pummeling double bass jaunts to tricky fills, thundering rolls and even sections that follow a more traditional rock n’ roll beat every once in awhile. All of these elements combine together into a sound that feels as if it could derail at any moment.

The raging opener, “Axiomatic Fragment” tears through 9+ minutes of increasingly twitchy insanity that emphasizes the metal aspect of progressive metal while still managing to lay down riffs that rock out righteously. The riffs are insane and leave no part of the guitar neck unexplored while somehow managing to maintain a certain sense of structure too. In other words, you can grab onto these riffs instead of them fluttering out of your memory in seconds. Brett’s abrasive percussion battery rarely stops in beating the living shit out of your eardrums until the song takes a shimmering, melodic turn about midway through that is rife with clean guitar work. The quiet guitar strum slowly builds into a wall of melodic math-rock distortion that will get even freakier shortly after as some insane noise comes seeping into the mix. The track ends with a solo that will set the hairs on the back of your neck on fire, let alone them just standing straight-up.

The thoroughly aggressive “The Great Caldera” follows suite, unleashing a flurry of precision riffs that bruise and batter above a crashing downpour of stop/star drumming. This song is jittery and all over the place until the band anchor things down in the final stretch with a rock-solid groove that lands them in firm sludge territory. This song provides a great contrast to the humorously titled, “Spooky Action at a Distance” which is probably my favorite track on the disc as it traverses a vast amount of territory in its 11 minute onslaught. This song reminds me of Collapsar’s signature sound all mashed up with a little bit of the trance-y, mellow shifts apparent on Don Caballero’s “American Don” with riffs that plow headfirst into the rock n’ roll realm of The Fucking Champs while maintaining an unwavering unpredictability akin to King Crimson. This song may have the influence of other bands that I’m directly picking up on but Collapsar put their own touch all over this one. The metal elements and sheer number of tempo alterations take you half of the way and their mastery of working with ambient atmospheric moments complete your journey into outer space.

“He’s got an Axe!” continues the band’s love of dynamic mood changes as white-knuckle technical metal dances between jazzy clean segments, sludge-y downshifts and all out math-rock fury. The riffs constantly change and it is almost impossible to keep track of all of the madness as a discordant sense of melody is present at times that keeps things nicely balanced between crushing and captivating. The quick gut-punch of “Drilling Holes through Space” marks the shortest song on the disc and another immediate standout. The waif like intro shows that melody will be ever present on this song with a brief acoustic opening. The music incorporates elements that even remind me of Fugazi in a few parts as the sound of some of the riffing is a strangely soothing cascade of harmonic post-punk meets mathematical dissonance.

The record closes with the massive, “The Forever War” which splices together bits of nerve damaged math-rock, metal, jazz, sludge and drone into an incredibly complex cocktail that will blow the roof off of your house. This song has a focus on particularly chunky riffs that oftentimes hint at the classic sludge tendencies of their home state but they never rest on their laurels for too long as rickety jazz arrangements keep you on your toes allowing the wild math-rock and progressive metal tendencies to deliver the critical blow to your cranium. The song ends on an ambient drone that clears the skies, bringing calm to the omnipresent storm that is “Integers”.

I feel confident in saying that you won’t hear a better instrumental record this year. Collapsar have managed to jump in the top tier of progressive, instrumental metal acts in a mere two records. This is an essential follow-up to a powerful debut album and one that all fans of progressive metal meets math-rock can enjoy. “Integers” is a must-buy record for fans that dig King Crimson, Breadwinner, Don Caballero, The Fucking Champs, Dazzling Killmen, etc. Although make sure you add a huge dose of metal to the above list of bands because Collapsar deliver the heaviness in spades. This is a phenomenal recording topped off with an equally “out there” digipak design to put the final touch on this total package. What the hell is that supposed to be anyway? Parts of a dragon, a seahorse, a heart and strange machinery? Even the layout is as insane as the music!


Visit the Escape Artist website at www.escapeartistrecords.com