Genre classification is an imperfect science.

And nowhere is that quite as apparent as within post rock. It is a beast with many heads, with some of the heads so disparate that their inclusion in the same section in the record store (or subfolder in iTunes) seems like an anomaly in the Pandora database. After all, what fellowship can Stereolab have with Godspeed You! Black Emperor? Russian Circles with Tortoise?

Likewise, Minnesota’s Collections of Colonies of Bees has little to do with crescendo hunters like Explosions in the Sky or This Will Destroy You. Their modus operandi is much less creating a narrative or exploring what heights yet remain unreached. CCoB is much more interested in construction and deconstruction and reconstruction.

Theirs is a deft game of Jenga, adding elements together and subtracting them and placing new elements elsewhere. Stuttering snare drums, obtuse keyboard figures, and angular guitar lines coalesce onto one another, growing in form rather than in emotional weight.

Flocks III (all four tracks are called Flocks) does this the most readily, starting with chopped guitar samples, adding elements throughout its eleven minutes until the groove grows to its heaviest possible point and comes to rest. There is no collapse or decrescendo–it simply ends, having accomplished its purpose.

But while they may play more with their heads than their hearts, there is beauty to be found in the feedback loops and tapped guitar lines and asymmetrical drum beats, but not the type of beauty that will get them put in any movie trailers.