This is the debut album from Danish post-hardcore/metal band Kollapse.
Angst is not your average release. The band don’t easily slot into a neat genre classification, so I’ve gone with post-hardcore/metal, as that’s as accurate as anything, I suppose.
With an album cover that gives nothing away, the band have striven to offer the listener something a bit different to your average hardcore/metal release, and I think they’ve succeeded more than they’ve failed.
Mixing doom, sludge, crust, hardcore, and many other extreme genres and styles, this is a fiery and emotive collection of tracks that’s heavy and intense enough to flay your skin raw.
Alongside this utter crushing heaviness though is a keen emotive edge that shines through in everything the band do. These are not heavy riffs that exist purely for the sake of being heavy, they also carry all manner of feelings, atmospheres, and moods in their walls of distortion. This is one of the many things that set Kollapse apart from a lot of their peers, and echoes how effective a band like Cult of Luna are when they’re at their colossally heaviest.
At only 34 minutes in length it’s a relatively brief release, but what it lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality. The songs on this album have a lot of worthwhile, engaging, emotive content that drag the listener close and then suffocate them with weighty emotions and dark, involving guitars. The tracks are well-written and show an intense, dynamic, creative band at work.
The recording and guitar sound that the band have is rock heavy, providing the songs on the album with a suitable sonic focus to be as effective as possible.
Angst is an impressive release that plays by its own rules more often than not. The band have shown that they can write effective hard-to-pigeonhole heavy music that is emotive and memorable.
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