Giving

VINYL FORMAT. The pulse is set less than a minute into Giving, Collections of Colonies of Bees first album in three years. There's no foreplay, no smalltalk -- just endless altitude. Their sixth full-length, the bona fide descendent of Customer and Birds (and even Volcano Choir's Unmap), is a 4-song, 28-minute eruption: Lawn, Vorm, Lawns, Vorms. It's the crashing waves of Rosenau's guitar, the pelting rain of Mueller's percussion, the vaporous breaths of Thomas Wincek's piano, and the rhythmic fabric woven by Jim Schoenecker (electronics), Daniel Spack (guitar), and Matthew Skemp (bass).

It's Collections of Colonies of Bees as themselves – the rigor, the emotions, the groove. For a band that's been described as "Rhys Chatham and Arnold Dreyblatt meet pop", Giving is a record that begs to re-introduce Collections of Colonies of Bess as architects of avant-rock and to count them among the likes of Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, and Battles.