Review Summary: Brightened by brilliance but hampered by shades of mediocrity.
Luciferian Towers, the sixth LP from Godspeed You! Black Emperor, is a great album. There's not much else that can be said about it, other than to express disappointment about how good it could have been. There are swathes of brilliance which are dampened by sometimes long periods of mediocrity.
Similar to 2012's 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!, Luciferian Towers consists of two large songs (this time split into three tracks each for some reason) and two smaller, freeform drone segments. And, like on 'Allelujah, I just don't get the drone. Beginning an album with almost eight minutes of noise that is devoid of structure is not the best way to get your listeners captivated. I get that Godspeed probably don't care about appealing to the mainstream crowd, but the first track may well be enough to put some people off the album altogether. The same can be said about Fam/Famine, which is sandwiched by the two lengthy songs. I can count the times I've actually listened to this song on my fingers, because while it is relatively pleasant to listen to (no dissonant bagpipe-esque sounds here), it just kills the momentum of the album and doesn't really seem to serve any actual purpose.
It's a real shame that the two drone tracks are so disappointing, because the 'main' songs on Luciferian Towers, Bosses Hang and Anthem for No State, are Godspeed at their absolute best. The former begins booming, soaring, with bass that could rip the paint off walls, before simmering down to very little more than a heartbeat. It gains pace and volume, in classic Godspeed fashion, before once again exploding in euphoric sound, with Sophie Trudeau's violin screaming like a siren. It's wonderful, and shows that despite their readiness to write dark, brooding music, the post-rock giants still have it in them to write something uplifting and positive.
Anthem for No State is an entirely different animal. Beginning subdued and deliberate, there is no crescendo to speak of. The first two parts are both very quiet, although with different moods, then almost out of nowhere, part three hits like a train. Pulsing drums and bass begin the eight minute closer, before breaking out into one final, huge, utterly brilliant segment that rivals Godspeed's top works of the past. A fitting end to an album that is, by all accounts, great.
The problem with Luciferian Towers is that it isn't particularly cohesive. The songs don't seem to have any reason to be placed where they are, and it's very easy to listen to one song on its own without losing any enjoyment. This isn't a particularly bad thing, as it means you don't have to sit through forty minutes of an album to get the full effect of the songs, but it is a shame that there isn't the continuity that almost every one of Godspeed's previous albums was so rich in. The lack of field recordings is noticed as well, particularly in the quieter parts of songs where one feels they could have added some depth to the emotional scope of the album. That said, Luciferian Towers is worth a listen for any post-rock fan, as it does contain brilliance, just not all the way through.
