April 2 street date. GYBE returns with another soundtrack for our times, like only this inimitable and venerable ensemble can forge. As the heretical anarcho-punk spirit of the title implies, Godspeed harnesses some particularly raw power, spittle and grit across two riveting 20-minute side-length trajectories of noise-drenched widescreen post-rock: inexorable chug blossoms into blown-out twang, as some of the band'’s most soaring, searing melodies ricochet and converge amidst violin and bassline counterpoint. Field recordings and roiling semi-improvised passages frame these fervent epics, and two shorter self-contained 6-minute pieces find the band at its most devastatingly beautiful, haunting and elegiac. Poignant atmospherics, noise-drenched orchestration, drone, hypnotic swingtime crescendos, inexorably-layered towers of distorted clarion sound: "STATE'S END" encapsulates every beloved facet of the band. Twenty-five years on, this new album is as vital, stirring, timely and implacable as any in Godspeed You! Black Emperor's storied discography.
April 2 street date. GYBE returns with another soundtrack for our times, like only this inimitable and venerable ensemble can forge. As the heretical anarcho-punk spirit of the title implies, Godspeed harnesses some particularly raw power, spittle and grit across two riveting 20-minute side-length trajectories of noise-drenched widescreen post-rock: inexorable chug blossoms into blown-out twang, as some of the band'’s most soaring, searing melodies ricochet and converge amidst violin and bassline counterpoint. Field recordings and roiling semi-improvised passages frame these fervent epics, and two shorter self-contained 6-minute pieces find the band at its most devastatingly beautiful, haunting and elegiac. Poignant atmospherics, noise-drenched orchestration, drone, hypnotic swingtime crescendos, inexorably-layered towers of distorted clarion sound: "STATE'S END" encapsulates every beloved facet of the band. Twenty-five years on, this new album is as vital, stirring, timely and implacable as any in Godspeed You! Black Emperor's storied discography.
October 4 street date. THE PLAIN TRUTH= we drifted through it, arguing. every day a new war crime, every day a flower bloom. we sat down together and wrote it in one room, and then sat down in a different room, recording. "NO TITLE"= what gestures make sense while tiny bodies fall? what context? what broken melody? and then a tally and a date to mark a point on the line, the negative process, the growing pile. the sun setting above beds of ash while we sat together, arguing. the old world order barely pretended to care. this new century will be crueler still. war is coming. Don't give up. pick a side. hang on. Love.
October 4 street date. THE PLAIN TRUTH= we drifted through it, arguing. every day a new war crime, every day a flower bloom. we sat down together and wrote it in one room, and then sat down in a different room, recording. "NO TITLE"= what gestures make sense while tiny bodies fall? what context? what broken melody? and then a tally and a date to mark a point on the line, the negative process, the growing pile. the sun setting above beds of ash while we sat together, arguing. the old world order barely pretended to care. this new century will be crueler still. war is coming. Don't give up. pick a side. hang on. Love.