Review Summary: Godspeed You! Black Emperor made an EP, and it’s kinda good.
Slow Riot is the first, and I believe only EP by Canadian post rock band, Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Not only are they one of my favorite bands, their debut album, F# A# Infinity is my favorite of all time. This was the EP following that. We received two tracks from it, Moya and BBF3. And while I enjoy both of them, I prefer Moya. Here’s why.
Moya starts off very slow and builds up. The violins lay the path for everything. The violins are soft and mellow as the bass and guitar fade in, and then eventually the drums. Then, around the 6 minute mark, everything goes crazy. This beautiful riff starts in the background as the cellos and violins just build up more and more. The drums start kinda soft and then build up until he’s literally banging the snare so hard you can almost hear the drum rattle. That’s when we reach the climax. It keeps climbing and climbing up. In the guitars, you hear pain and despair, but yet some hope. Pessimism and nihilism, but yet there’s that small flicker of life. Like they’re saying “yeah things are bad now but it will get better”. And it’s like that for most of their music. Another good example of what I described can be heard in The Cowboy, We Drift Like Worried Fire, and Sleep. Once everything starts to slow down and calm down, we’re left with the violins again that started us off. And it was quite an experience. And the EP isn’t even done. Once everything starts to calm down, the song ends and leads into the second track on the EP, Blaise Bailey Finnegan III. So, now I’m going to talk about that and then I’ll end the review.
Remember the guy talking about “the preacher man says it’s the end of time” from the beginning of Providence? Well, he’s back. And, he has a story. BBF3 is very interesting instrumentally. Because the actual instrumentals aren’t very noticeable until halfway through the song. The song consists of BBF3 telling a story about a parking ticket he got and the argument with the judge. And around halfway through, the music builds up and gets more intense as the story gets more intense, and I think that’s a very interesting thing GY!BE did. So, as the music builds up, the voice starts fading out and a piano starts leading the way. Until everything hits you in a wave. Drums, guitar, cellos, and the piano are all going insane. And it’s quite possibly one of the finest climaxes I’ve heard in music. Godspeed really does a really amazing job for climaxes. And this was their only EP, and it’s actually kind of disappointing. Not the EP, the fact that they didn’t make any other EPs, because I would’ve loved to hear them.
So, now the question you might ask me is, “do you recommend this EP?”. Well, of course. It’s one of the greatest ever made. I recommend all of their music actually. My rating for this is 4.5/5. So, I hope you enjoyed the review, and I’ll see you next time.
