Review Summary: Godspeed You! Black Emperor release an enjoyable yet ultimately disappointing fifth album.
What made Godspeed You! Black Emperor's first three offerings so wonderful was the way they affected your emotions. They changed how you felt about things you didn't even realise you had an opinion on. F#A# ∞ portrayed an apocalypse 95% devoid of hope. Without that 5% it would have been dreary and difficult to listen to, but because there was always a slight undertone of good feeling in the music, it made the album far easier to listen to and made the hour long runtime fly by. The same can be said for Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven. It's what set GY!BE apart from so many bands: They made complex emotions easily accessible through their music.
Fast forward to 2015, and the Canadian outfit release their fifth LP, Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress. Clocking in at a measly 41 minutes, you could be forgiven for thinking that a 'conventional' album was on the cards. This, obviously, is not the case, though it is their most immediate of releases. Opener 'Peasantry or Light! Inside of Light!' is devoid of the huge swelling crescendos that filled Godspeed records of old. It reaches its peak a mere two minutes into its ten minute length, it spends the rest of the time slowly dying away, in a manner that is enjoyable to listen to, if not slightly disappointing.
The middle two tracks of the album's four are dark, morbid drone pieces. Lambs' Breath and Asunder, Sweet almost kill the album; between them they take up seventeen minutes of album time, and unlike some other pieces by Godspeed, they take their time passing. Whereas The Dead Flag Blues makes seventeen minutes feel like five, these two drones feel like they take an awful lot longer to come to a close than they actually do. The reasoning behind this, as mentioned earlier, is lack of emotion. At the end of Antennas To Heaven there is a six minute drone but since there is some structure to it, some distinguishable chords and feeling, it doesn't feel difficult to listen to, it is pleasing to the ear and fits as an ending to an album.
Maybe I'm just not getting the idea of drone, maybe I'm missing the point entirely, but Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress just doesn't click like past Godspeed albums. The highlight of the album is, without a doubt the closer, Piss Crowns are Trebled. On first listen I thought to myself 'Ah, this is more like it!'. A slow crescendo, a militaristic drum beat, a pounding bassline, it reminded me of what made me love GY!BE in the first place. There is an overall theme to the song, some actual emotion builds within you when you listen to it. This, tied with the monumental increase in production quality makes the final fourteen minutes of the album incredibly enjoyable to listen to, and it almost redeems the album's prior shortcomings.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor aren't dead and buried, but the flair and emotion that made their early releases so poignant is almost gone, and that is truly a shame for any fans of their previous masterpieces. Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but those who listen to it expecting more of the same are sure to be disappointed. Then again, an artist that releases the same thing over and over is sure to get stale. Since the closer is so fantastic, there are still hopes that a sixth LP will be a return to form for the post rock behemoths.
