| Collapse - Domain Cleveland.com January 25 2003 Formed on the battlefields of Cleveland, this trio is destined to take the fight against the system right into the belly of the beast. Free thinking and fiercely independent, their music sets the stage for their all out assault on the establishment, organized religion and any other vestiges of bureaucratic society. Full of rage, power and determination Collapse challenges the audiences to break out of their shells and succumb to their inner selves. Collapse - Take No Oath (self released) Cleveland FreeTimes Aug 7-13, 2002 As far as four-song demos go, Take No Oath is about as good as it gets. Although the document lasts a mere eight minutes, austere production values and keen musicianship capture the trio - singer-bassist Jason, guitarist Alan and drummer Marc - thrashing out hardcore/metal mayhem of a truly modern sort. With their quicksilver, athletic assault on harcore's fondness for predictable breakdowns, they're experts at duplicating bands like Converge. And the singer's rigid bark provides each song with an extra gleam. Collapse's only apparent flaw is their willingness to follow in the steps of their genre's lyrical cliches. But when you hear how well executed the material is, you probably won't care that Collapse pseudo-intellectualizes issues of self-worth and faith ("and i want to see you repent/for my dreams that you've crushed," etc.). All of the members are still 25-and-under. Someday soon, their minds will catch up with their musical gifts and then you'll really wanna get outta da way. - Ryan Smith Collapse "Take No Oath" (God Is My Father = I Am Jesus Records) Cleveland Scene July 31, 2002 The Achilles' heel of much hardcore-based music is that its acts have the tendency to put hyperbole above headbanging. This threatens to be the case with Collapse, a promising young trio whose bio states that "Collapse hates American pride and wishes the economy would fall under the weight of its own fraudulent capitalist business practices." This ideological overkill, combined with overbearing anti-God sentiments, jeopardizes Collapse's impressive force. But while the rhetoric may be over the top, the group's sound is even more so, rendering the deluge of dogma negligible. "Take No Oath," the band's unrelenting debut demo/EP, contains but four songs and clocks in at just over eight minutes - and that's all you need. Singer-bassist Jason screams like his hair is on fire, while the locomotive guitars and nearly constant double-bass drumming create a sort of endurance test. But unlike many of this band's screamo peers, whose breathless blitzkriegs quickly become monotonous, Collapse excels at pacing, interspersing the occasional blast beat with burly thrash breakdowns and beefy riffing. Most impressive is the title cut, which goes from ponderous sludgecore to rapid-fire machine-gun metal in an instant - a sudden juxtaposition that also makes the teeth-gnashing "Now That My Hands Are Untied" a real standout. About the only problem we have with "Take No Oath" is Collapse's somewhat suspect politics. Though laudably passionate, this band's unflinching idealism seems as stubbornly single-minded as the institutions it rails against. Far be it from us to belittle a band for having something to say, but when a group goes off the deep end - to the left or the right - it drowns either way. - Jason Bracelin |
| COLLAPSE THE TRIO OF TERROR |__|_||||_|_|_|||_|________________________________________________________ Audio | Guestbook | Lyrics | Propaganda | Photography | Press | Shows | Home _______________________________________________________________ |