Post rock is almost more of a kitemark than a genre; if a band is described as post rock you can always bet they’re doing something interesting. Collections of Colonies of Bees are definitely post rock and have earned the sort of quality assurance that the term carries.

‘Giving’ clocks in at just 28 minutes long and contains four tracks – playfully and obtusely named ‘Lawn’, ‘Vorm’, ‘Lawns’ and ‘Vorms’. This structural dogma has carried through to their music, with very simple and deliberate guitar parts layered over basic but pleasing drum beats, with occasional percussion, electronica and modulated voices used as accents. There’s none of the chaotic virtuosity of Hella or the brutal dynamics of Mogwai, this is simply a very nice, warm collection of songs. It does swell and contract, lift and drop, but only ever in an organic way. There’s never any catharsis for the sake of catharsis.

There are drawbacks to the band’s measured approach; if they’d broken some of their songs down into a number of shorter themes the album could have felt like a journey rather than a thesis, and while their restraint is very listenable it does feel like we’re missing out on the simple pleasure of big, dirty noise. That’s just our preferences rather than any real problems with the album though.

Collections of Colonies of Bees clearly knew what they wanted to achieve. The best post rock is a conversation between instruments and ‘Giving’ manages to pull this off confidently and intelligently.

-Toby Dore-