Album: Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! | reviews, news & interviews
Album: Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!
Album: Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!
No substantial changes for the Canadian post-rock power orchestra
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/mast_image_landscape/public/mastimages/GYBE.jpg?itok=VspAWIIc)
To say that Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s new album is not even remotely commercial would be something of an understatement.
Opening track “A Military Alphabet (five eyes all blind) (4521.0kHz 6730.0kHz 4109.09kHz)/Job’s Lament/First of the Last Glaciers/where we break how we shine (ROCKETS FOR MARY)” kicks off with an unclear Long Wave radio sample before bringing on some fuzzy and raw guitar. The tempo slowly builds but never really powers above head-nodding speed as it explores various sonic textures through Sophie Trudeau’s violin and Efrim Menuck’s guitar, before fading away to the sound of birdsong and gunfire. It’s heavy and built for serious volume and while it doesn’t drag on record, it would surely fly much better from a stage.
“GOVERNMENT CAME (9980.0kHz 3617.1kHz 4521.0kHz)/Cliffs Gaze/cliffs gave at empty water’s rise/ASHES TO SEA or NEARER TO THEE” also begins with a fuzzy radio sample that slips into something creeping and mesmerising, as it builds in vibrancy and volume before bursting forth with orchestral pomp and then romping home with an almost joyous skip in its step. It’s music that is unlikely to ever bother the mainstream, but then the same could be said about the two more clipped tracks, “Fire at Static Valley” and “OUR SIDE HAS TO WIN (for DH)”. These are trippy and woozy, spaced out but not exactly relaxing. They do, however, provide welcome and more digestible interludes in the aftermath of the monolithic main events.
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