Orders of the British Empire

Obe, formerly and more formally known as Orders of the British Empire, open the pot and give wandering ears a gentle tease with their latest single/album teaser 'Standard Cheese', a preview of the path they're on towards their soon-to-be-released debut album. Proggy post-rock is the tag they've had their ears clipped with and it's a fair description as they mess around with structure and timing while retaining a giant chiming sweep, like the ringing of a great cosmic bell.

'Standard Fog's epic opening, a snippet of ambient sound giving way to a huge drum roll as the riff builds and builds while understanding that the momentum built can never be fully completed, leads into a muzak-style release that wouldn't sound out of place on a How It's Made demo video. This turns Brand New soon enough and again the process repeats, building and collapsing, building and collapsing. It's three good songs, trying to make one great song, and it only just falls short. It's epic, it's huge, and it's a bit Teeth of the Sea-y.

'I am the Cheese Baron!' appears from the reverb of the first track, initially appearing as a honking violin-esque noise over some painfully clean guitars, mutating pretty quickly into some straight-forward rocking, with the usual soaring lead line building and building, like a less fuzzy Yourcodenameis:Milo, to a massive riff that messes with your head, being both fast and slow, huge and small, swirling around and sounding like it's almost, almost going to fall apart but staying together in a very pleasing way. I'd imagine they're fantastic live, and their album should be out late 2012. They're on the lookout for another guitarist so if cosmic post-rock is your musical bag and you're from London, contact them at obeband@live.co.uk. If not, or you can't be bothered, then just do nothing and buy the record when it comes out, you ungrateful bastard.

#Orders of the British Empire #Post-rock #progressive #Stubble #Rob Batchelor