The climactic entry in our four-set Unwound exploration, Empirecompiles the final pair of albums by the Olympia, Washington, trio. On 1998s Challenge For A Civilized Society, the band toyed with conventional verse/chorus form, stacking layers of noise and distraction on top of tightly constructed melodies. They’d abdicate entirely just three years later with 2001s Leaves Turn Inside You, executing a 14-song masterclass in home recording that observed a crucial band in graceful transition from post-hardcore trio to experimental quintet. The mammoth double album was lost in the chaos of a post-9/11 media, baffling onlookers and exhilarating fans in successive breaths before it fell far out of print. At their reinvention and terminus, Unwound ultimately asked Who Cares? The Empire box-set teems with period singles, B-sides, unreleased studio tracks, and demos, alongside a 15,000-word essay exploring the terminal stages of the 90s, indie rock, Unwound, and civilization as we know it.

• – Disc 1 –
• 1Data
• 2Laugh Track
• 3Meet the Plastics
• 4The World Is Flat
• 5Sonata for Loudspeakers
• 6No Tech!
• 7Side Effects of Being Tired
• 8Lifetime Achievement Award
• 9What Went Wrong
• – Disc 2 –
• 1We Invent You
• 2Look a Ghost
• 3December
• 4Treachery
• 5Terminus
• 6Demons Sing Love Songs
• 7Off This Century
• – Disc 3 –
• 1One Lick Less
• 2Scarlette
• 3October All Over
• 4Summer Freeze
• 5Radio Gra
• 6Below the Salt
• 7Who Cares
• – Disc 4 –
• 1Mile Me Deaf
• 2The Light at the End of the Tunnel Is a Train
• 3Solo Sonata
• 4XLNT
• 5Laszlo
• 6Torch Song
• 7Meet the Plastics
• 8The World Is Flat
• 9Empire