Review Summary: Subtlety out the window.
The beauty that I often found within post-rock titans/giants/gods/demigods/demigod93s/pretentious fucks/etc. Godspeed You! Black Emperor was their ability to create an over(t)ly sombre atmosphere whilst subtly masquerading some sort of hope and elation underneath. In the opening track of their debut record
F#A# 8-turned-sideways, you are thrown into a clearly apocalyptic-esque world--that sombre atmosphere easily envelops everything. And yet, the final two movements of the track offer quite the dichotomy in relation to the track’s beginning--what started as bleak and uncertain quickly becomes quite beautiful. The contrasting emotions found within this track make for a cohesive experience whilst still maintaining a dazzling amount of emotional response and invocation. This track, “The Dead Flag Blues,” utilizes the ability to stir up emotion through contrast to a T here. It weaves through your feelings, skewing your perception of elation, sorrow, and everything in between, and instead replaces those spews of red and green with a big chunk of brown. While you know that the brown contains other colors, the wonderful thing is that you cannot really discern where yellow starts and blue ends--that’s the beauty. It does not matter what emotion a certain movement is invoking. All that matters is that the brown is making you
feel.
I was lucky enough to catch the group live in October of 2012. I managed to grab second row seats with my best bud Dan (throwback for those who give a shit), and we strolled in high off of the pot weeds and ready to discuss physics and space on the T ride back to our shit hole apartments.
Upon walking into the Orpheum (Boston, MA 10/01/12), we were greeted by the standard fuckboys at the merch stand waving around some shit with a stupid looking house on it. Naturally, we assumed it was some fire mixtape, so we had to walk past--however, it was Godspeed’s new album. The elation was real. Not only was I about to see my (tied for) favorite band live, I was also going to be able to go home and blast this pretentious shit for hours on end and then rip it to FLAC to reap those delicious waffles.fm rewards.
Sitting down in those smushed-ass seats (it’s hard being comfortable in a lot of places when you’re 6’7”), I was gushing precum out of my 3 incher and just waiting to hear some dope shit while tripping over some weird visuals of dogs eating flies or garbage cans on fire or some shit.
But that precum never came.
They played their post-hiatus standards: Hope Drone (meh), Monheim (awesome, but I couldn’t see Efrim using his screwdriver so who tf cares), Mladic (they actually played it as Albanian here so that was pretty cool), then this fucking juggernaut (This Time It’s Personal 5/5) of a track that went by “Behemoth” at the time.
I had never fallen asleep at a concert before. But as they say, there is a first time for everything.
’Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress’ is what the band decided to rename the oddly-noneccentrically-named 40 minute long track “Behemoth.” This sums up post-hiatus Godspeed: an uneven balance of style and substance, with style edging out substance more and more as we stem away from 2012. While some of their prior album titles certainly leaned towards the pretentious spectrum of things, they combated that by having relatively simple song titles (see: Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven-->Storm, Static, Sleep). The seemingly meaningless and just straight-up stupid song titles reflect the unfortunately vapid attempt at depth found within the tracks themselves. Sure, you can name your song “Lambs’ Breath,” but that doesn’t make the track any better or deeper. I can excuse a track titled “Motherfucker=Redeemer” if it actually offers up a significant amount of depth and emotion that almost forces you to create a practical meaning for the ridiculous title.
The first track oh-so Zionly titled, “Peasantry, or ‘Light! Inside of Light!,” begins with a repetitive drum lick that thematically sums up the entirety of the record. The first third of “Peasantry” is built around this drum lick, with the guitars and violins mimicking one another a la “Mladic” from previous album
Hallelujah and Some Shit (Light on Everything) Alas! The Sun Blows Another; or, Blues, Moons, and Gathering Satellites 8-turned-sideways. While the song changes directions a few times (most notably around the 4 and 8 minute marks), the drums keep the song from truly developing by keeping the climax underwhelming via dragging the tempo down. It seems as though they are going for the “safe” way of writing music; instead of creating 20 minute tracks that weave together multiple themes, emotions and movements seamlessly, they instead opt to take a single key and riff around on it for roughly 10 minutes. The track sounds like a jam session. It does not seem structured. There does not seem to be any or sort of layering of instruments a la earlier tracks such as Storm or Providence. Instead, the strings all seem to mimic one another simply out of their inability to figure out how to work together without copying one another. This plays out through the entire album.
This is apparently a common utilization for post-hiatus Godspeed. Mladic, from their 2012 release, works in the same vein. The entire first third of the track is a faux-build up which culminates in the oh-so underwhelming string mimicry of the lead we have been hearing the entire song. It seems as if though they took the idea from “13 Blues for Thirteen Moons,” the title track of the album by side project “A Silver Mt. Zion,” and just tried to emulate/copy it entirely. While that track flourished by hinting at a lead and letting the exhilaration trickle down, all subtlety is lost when you do not even try to dance around the fact that the lead you are hearing at the 1 minute mark is going to climax at 7 minutes in. It is unoriginal. It it underwhelming.
It is
predictable.
That is quite the insult when you think about how hard Godspeed has worked to maintain originality within the generally stagnant post-rock genre consisting mostly of crescendoing for 10 minutes.
It is not to say that the group doesn’t try to switch it up--they have once again enlisted the help of Benadryl and lean to create some filler drones. The first drone, “Lambs’ Breath,” is actually not entirely terrible. It works in a dichotomous way with the end of “Peasantry,” combating the previous track’s aggression with a welcome disruption of ease. Mirroring the likes of drone movements such as “[...+The Buildings They Are Sleeping Now]” from “Static” off of
Lift Your Skinny Fists…, it acts as a flowing connection; an interlude if you will. At almost 10 minutes long, it overstays its welcome by a bit, but it still works as to cool you off after the intensity of “Peasantry.”
For some reason, they decided to add another drone. “Asunder, Sweet” is completely useless. Running around roughly 16 minutes, the two drones are longer than either of the “main” tracks on the record. With some snipping, you could have had this entire LP be a single track a la
Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada. The dual drones are unnecessary--a mere 4-6 minutes would act as a perfect way to bridge the album.
It seems as though they were trying to mix up their formula in the way that they did on their prior album, which consisted of song-->drone-->song-->drone. They didn’t know how to switch it up anymore than just song-->drone-->drone-->song, which resulted in them somehow overlooking the fact that they aren’t fucking Sunn O))) and their fans generally like to have the atonal, noisier parts be “overshadowed” by the more melodic and intricate parts.
While the album has its numerous faults, there are still diamonds found within the rough. While “Peasantry” may be quite repetitive, the melodies found around the 4 and 8 minute marks make up for the general monotony found in the parts building up to it. There are hints that the group still knows how to conjure up bittersweet emotion, mostly found within the final track, “Piss Crowns Are Trebled.”
If “Peasantry” is the “Mladic” of this album, then “Piss” is certainly the “We Drift Like Worried Fire.” “Mladic” and “Pleasantry” both follow a dense, octave, middle eastern style of riffing, while “Piss” and “Fire” both follow a classic crescendo style that culminates in beauty and the realization that there can be hope found within the darkness. “Piss” starts off where the two drones end, encompassing a cynical and depressing mood. What starts as rather contemplatively hopeless slowly turns into a somewhat uplifting and hope
ful track. Only by truly appreciating this track are you able to understand the value of the two drones--they act as a sombre bridge towards this final conflict; this final act of the movie that culminates with the hero finally getting the princess and living happily ever after.
This album tells a story; a story that could easily slip under the cracks if one does not pay enough attention. I have to force myself into drawing these conclusions, but the theme found within the tracks and the general hopeful/hopeless dichotomy and the placement of each positive/negative emotion cannot be ignored. While the tracks don’t seem to have much to offer by themselves, the big picture creates an overarching range of emotions that, for the first time since their reunion, shows that Godspeed is capable of tapping back into our hearts.
