Review Summary: Just let it.
It's like a visit from an old best friend that never has time to call when Godspeed You! Black Emperor releases a new album. There's the initial "feeling it out" period of the changes that friend has made to their personality and your adjustment to it. You wait awkwardly for that old bond to reestablish, and sometimes it feels like you're going to end up shortchanged. Yet, with Godspeed You! Black Emperor, there will always be that moment where you remember why that friend was your "best" friend. It just takes a little bit longer with this one. 'Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress' proves to be a sonically focused effort from a stalwart collective of musicians lauded for their experimentation and consistency.
The initial track, "Peasantry, or 'Light! Inside of Light!", continues along the largely phrygian tonal motif that was first presented in "'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!". The drums are front and center and plod along at a lazy march to outline the massive guitar onslaught that carries on for the first chunk of the album. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of this motif which is where I find it to be the "awkward-re-getting-to-know-you" period. It can come across as a bit of an easy approach in terms of sense of tension, given that just naturally that melodic theme has that effect. By no means is it bad and it's certainly well executed, it still remains to be somewhat uninteresting in parts.
Thereafter are the dense back-to-back noise filled tracks "Lambs' Breath" and "Asunder, Sweet". Atonal and bleak, they both meld together and display Godspeed's intention of thematic duress with this record. The sounds on these two tracks paint a picture of static and a dead space in between your ears. They're low in register, and almost pulsate with low and fuzzy tremolo guitar riffs that come across as accidental in execution, which makes them all the more well-crafted. This is the darkest section of "noise" that Godspeed You! Black Emperor has ever done, and it primes the listener for the epic closer.
"Piss Crowns Are Trebled" is Godspeed You! Black Emperor at their finest. This is the moment where it all aligns and the theme of the album becomes clear. It comes crashing down with panicked violins, reverb-laden riffs, and heavy hitting drums with gripping urgency. This entire track hits like the apex of "Moya" and refuses to let you go. It becomes apparent that Godspeed knew exactly what they were doing when they prefaced this track with the three previous. Seldom can a band create such tension and leave you near breathless at the end of the track. I find myself wanting to put it on repeat, but it almost feels as if I'd be cheating my way to the end. It's a payoff. It's a reward.
This is not Godspeed You! Black Emperor's best record, and it's not their worst. It's simply Godspeed nailing Godspeed without the previously explored tactics they've commonly used. There're few (if any) field recordings or muddled voices. It's not an hour and a half. It's a short, sweet, boulder-fisted punch in the gut that satisfies if you let it.
