Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Godspeed You Black Emperor! > Reviews > Godspeed? Yes Please!!! **updated**

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Not applicable
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money

Advantages:	one of the greatest bands in the world .
Disadvantages:	30 minute songs may annoy some people .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

*updated*

Godspeed you black emperor. a nontet hailing from the chilly, Canadian city of Toronto. This band has always had a mystique surrounding them, it could be because of their refusal to be interviewed directly or because of the music they create, beautiful swirling symphonic pieces, bleak, cold, chilling musical recreations of pure sound, not music but sound.

Godspeed also excel in long, drawn out statements of spoken word poetry backed by crescendo laden violins singing a symphony of apocalyptic beauty to the heavens.

When a band uses four or five different symphonies spliced together into one, drawn out artistic statement, you wonder what the statement could be as the band do not write lyrics, they only use spoken word pieces from underground movies of apocalyptic tales. But then you understand that there needn’t be a statement or a meaning to such music as its beauty and the emotion pouring out of the instruments is reason enough to believe in.

Godspeed You Black Emperor have recorded 3 albums and one EP under the Godspeed moniker, although many side projects do exist. Bands such as esmerine and a silver mout zion feature members of Godspeed.

F#A#(infinity symbol) was Godspeeds first album. It originally comprised of 2 tracks, “Dead Flag Blues” and “East Hastings” (which was used in the film, 28 Days Later.) F#A# was reissued by the Canadian label Kranky. The album was given a bonus track “Providence” and was released globally.

Slow riot for new zero kanada was godspeed you black emperors first globally released EP, lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven was their second album and Yanqui U.X.O their third .

the first song on F#A#(infinity symbol is known as the Dead flag blues, it’s a song comprising of 4 movements.

1st movement known as the dead flag blues (intro.)

a spoken word piece, comprising of a old man speaking apocalyptic verses of requiem and woe. Beautiful poetry recited from a old man. Backing this is a chorus of violins building slowly.

starting off slowly this guitar, cello and violin led sound cape gently builds up into a crescendo of dreams. Majestic soundscapes are envisioned and a gentle aura of warmth coupled with chilling woe. Separate violin and cello pieces slither delicately through the main flow of guitar and violin and later into the piece, mandolin. suddenly it ends with a short clipped spoken word piece.

2nd movement. - slow moving trains.

a creaking, clanking, tooting train starts of the third piece of sonic experimentation. Only this time, it really is experimenting with sound, not so much music, but sound. Strange, random noises build and transform into different sounds of something never before heard. Things sound as if played backwards then reversed to sound full, providing strange atmospheres to be created and strange thoughts to be envisioned..

3rd movement- the cowboy.

Then the track suddenly changes into a dusty guitar and bass ‘western’ feel, touching on aspects of Ennio Morricones’ work. The slide guitar and bass are eventually coupled by violin and cello, drawing a full, slow, majestic sonic picture to be formed in your mind, of rolling plains, dusty western deserts, cacti and somewhere riding over a sunset laden hill a lone rider, set on a singular journey.

4th movement. - outro.

As soon as the third movement comes to its end, a short uplifting and for some strange reason, jolly piece slides from the speakers, a short, puzzling affair, consisting mainly of four separate melodies by double bass, violin, slide guitar and a glockenspiel. A short and gleefully happy piece, placed at the end of such a monumental track as a reward for trekking through vast canyons of static.

Second track, ‘East Hastings,’ is unlike ‘dead flag blues’ as a rhino is as unlike a cod. Two completely different tracks, different sounds, different structure, but with the same ideas. ‘East Hastings,’ is more of a ‘song’ than a composition. Not structured into separate musical tales, but one flowing story of despair in an apocalyptic climate.

Harrowing guitar lines and ethereal spires of single violin notes whisper through the beginning of the track as delicately as a spider treading upon silk.

Gently a drum beat picks up, guitars are pushed forward, given centre stage and the beauty and fragility of the instruments coupled together astounds and brings a tear to your eye. Violin and cello is added whilst guitar is taken away, a mournful lament is sung from the bows, a military style beat is a strong driving force until everything stops.

Picking up afresh, the same delicate guitar lines seem to have more focus now after their short break, urgent flashes of violin and cello build themselves up faster and faster, guitar lines speed as drums become more intense and progressive. Separate slithers of guitar and violin play their own melodies through the medium of speakers, rising quickly into a fury of rushing and building sound, the outcome is monstrous, nothing.

A harrowing piece of music stopped at its peak of power and intensity, such vision the nontet have. ‘East Hastings,’ suddenly changes after this cold, and vexing rush of sound. Eerie noises from old tape loops reverberate around your speakers, creating walls of sound which build each other up, nock each other down and resemble an ocean, at its stormiest. A stormy ocean, a strange metaphor for such a quiet and wraithlike piece, true, but the images envisioned by strange sonic adventures are an individual experience.

Grating noise cuts you straight to the bone, a speeded up buzzing of some sort likens you to a fly, buzzing around your head, the noise changes into odd mechanical noises going “womph womph” (strange and silly I know but it’s the only way to describe it.)

“Think the end of the world coming?”…“ the preacher man says it’s the end of time, says that Americas rivers are going dry, the interest is up, the stock market is down.”
“But do you think the end of the world is coming?”
“nah, so says the preacher man, but I don’t go by what he says.”

Do you? Providence (third and final ‘song’ on F#A# (Infinity Symbol) and song upon which the above quote was delivered. ) asks more questions than the answers it delivers. A 29 minute, true epic of vacuumous exploration. Opening with a strangly apocalyptic quote it rumbles on into a low wail of feed back echoed by velvety strands of reversed tape loop
.
Providence has many ideas, all mixed and spliced together into a strange brew of short pieces of musical endeavour. Silence is mixed with volcanic explosions of rock fury. Guitars and other ‘organic’ instruments are mainly cast aside for tape loops and wails of feedback creating sonic landscapes of the most bizarre wastelands envisioned.

The sound barrier is broken simply by listening to the song, it is deep, dense, troubled and inevitably schizophrenic in its vague and random ways, huge expanses of time pass without a single note being played. Even though it has been around 5 minutes it seems like an age of nothingness has passed before the music starts. Fractured is the way to best describe Providence.

A driving percussive rhythm breaks separately from the main of sound, forging its own rhythms and force, guitars follow, gently building and driving solidly, the passage pick up more instruments, volume increases, sound soars high into the sky and pure energy is unleashed in the form of noise. Emotive slivers of distorted guitar notes punctuate the air with a poignancy that screams “here is my pain, sadness and my grief.” Trombones, trumpets, a cello and a violin eventually join to this part of providence, and then it stops, again. Another idea finished and used up. On to the next then.

2 minutes of ghostly vocals echoing down the speakers leads on to a guitar, violin, cello and mandolin led piece. Very classical, the piece could be played at a Spanish court and not seem out of place, there is a definite regal nature to the music played, even though guitars are crashed about at its end, the most ‘rock’ sounding guitars on the album smash together in a distorted and discordant nature.

So many individual ideas are present on providence its hard to count and describe the music, its majestic, powerful, emotive, genuinely moving and truly astounding.

Every single time I listen to Godspeed you! Black emperor my amazement of how spectacular this band are is obvious to me, simply, they are one of the best bands I have ever listened to.