Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Classic or Dud?

still though...they seem to be coming out with better music when not doing things that are gybe specific (i.e. do make say think, a silver mt. zion)...the new album is kinda blah..but whatever.

So, classic or dud? Uh. Mind you I did like the one piece of e-mail I got after the review I did, a GYBE fan (mark that) writing in to say "you take yourself too seriously".

- First of all, nothing repulses me. Nothing is unpleasant.
- The whole thing feels very much like it was structured as a film score of some sort. (So much post-rock always felt like it was trying to be a score for some public TV family drama! This kind of does too.) It makes sense that they apparently play with films.
- It's cool that they're trying to incorporate a wider range of instruments, including some more traditional folky kinds of sounds
- The moments that are more dense and textural without a beat are nice. However, they tend not to last for very long.
- Much of the rest of the album seems to consist of very slow simple melodic passages, some of it a long guitar solo, some of it a more folky thing with other instruments. These passages are sometimes pleasant but do feel extremely simplistic and perhaps limited in terms of both melody and rhythm, more so than almost any mainstream rock or pop music. The drummer maintains a totally even totally straight slow 4/4 'beat' throughout these passages. When there are tempo changes, they are performed at a totally even rate as to be completely predictable. The guitarist seems to tend to almost always play right on the beat, which is bizarre. This seems to contradict such a basic musical principle that it must be a conscious aesthetic choice but I don't understand what it is. This might possibly makes me similar to people who don't get why Indian music has no chord changes. Why a pulse is even introduced here with hardly any rhythmic tension is what I wonder. It is possible that it might make more sense with further listening but it just seems to make things almost totally predictable now. Like I said, not overtly offensive or even not-pleasant or anything, but it also fails to achieve much more than this. It seems like it has potential that it doesn't realize.

It is a certain kind of music, and I find it interesting that some people say "I couldn't sit and listen to it". I guess that depends on what one looks for when putting on music to listen to. For me, GYBE is faboulous music to write, draw and even program to (well so my partner tells me). It is about immersing oneself in another place. The music moves through moods, peaks and troughs, shadows and light. It has some mindblowingly moving bursts of wall-of-noise guitar, and some beautifully melancholy quiet moments (fave quote from "Dead Flag Blues" - we're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine... and the machine is bleeding to death)

Uhh... yeah. I love them.

POCXY FULE SEZ HEDHEGOF

Nick OTM

Search: First one (where is the hash key on a Mac?), Slow Riot For Zero Kanada

Destrrrrrrrroy: Levez..., Yanqui UXO

sterling clover wrote:
I think that I would be impressed to see any live band do just one long ninety-minute build-up fuck-off track.

search: Physics -- a veritable who's who of san diego indie rock circa 1992 did this live several times, attempts at minimalism ("in E") and post-branca-isms.

I saw Dirty 3 live once and hated them. Droning, boring, dreadful wank. And I love GBYE and Mogwai so go figure.

One of the few regrets I do have, as their music deserves to be experienced live (preferably in a small- to medium- sized joint).

Search: Tortoise, Disco Inferno, Trans Am, Mogwai
Destory: Godspeed You! Black Emperor (as I believe they call themselves, the fucking wankers), Sigur Ros

Search: Tortoise, Disco Inferno, Trans Am, Mogwai, Bark Psychosis
Destory: Godspeed You! Black Emperor (as I believe they call themselves, the fucking wankers), Sigur Ros

Henry Cow are more interesting to me but both of 'em have this dry sound.

F♯ A♯ ∞ is better overall, but Storm from LYSFLATH is maybe the strongest individual track. imo!

sounds great, thanks!

From the first period I rate Yanqui UXO the highest, and from the second period 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! But like StanM says, you can't really go wrong.

I went through the whole catalogue again yesterday by coincidence
there's no weak album and sequence isn't important imo

but yeh storm and the rest of lift yr skinny fists is all time

Yeah, I definitely recommend Allelujah as a high point, but they're all at least worth hearing. Here's how I'd rank 'em today:

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead
Yanqui U.X.O.
G_d's Pee at State's End!
Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada E.P.
F♯ A♯ ∞
Luciferian Towers
Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress

"Yanqui UXO" and "Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!" are my favourites as well. I would say the first period is pretty much good all the way through. After the reunion ('Allelujah' going forward) it gets a bit more uneven, though some of their best tracks are in this period (I think "Mladic" off Allelujah is maybe my favourite individual track).

BBF3 is their strongest track imho, i've probably said as much many times upthread.

Yeah, I think Slow Zero Kanada is Godspeed distilled. Magnificent. I'd go to F# and Lift Yr Skinny Fists from there.

One of the truly great bands of the past three decades. Can't go wrong ... but Lift Yr Skinny Fists seems like the right starting point.

same as Mogwai, the Godspeed you hear first is usually "the best"

so it's Life Yr Skinny Fists.

Welcome aboard!

You really can't go wrong - even their most forgettable albums like Asunder, Luciferian Towers, etc are still great and better than most other bands who've been trying to mimic them since the 90s.

My favs echo others here, Lift Your Skinny Fists is iconic and their peak. I also adore the brooding intensity and immediacy of Yanqui UXO. The opening monologue and song of F#A# is like a mission statement and must be heard too. Of the new stuff my favs are Asunder, G_d's Pee and the new one (in no real particular order, they all exhibit very different vibes but hit amazing highs).

If you haven't seen them live, go (one of the best shows I've ever been to was them performing under the stars at a camp ground in Big Sur) - they are touring this year.

btw anyone else feel Yanqui UXO is by far and away the worst recorded record of theirs? The abrasiveness and thinness of it always holds me back from wanting to put it on. Most of the rest of their stuff is so rich sounding and dynamic (compare Yanqui to F#A# for example)

Perhaps enough time has passed to support a "Worst Sounding Steve Albini Recordings" thread as Yanqui UXO would be in my top 3

I’d think they would be a challenge to record in general.

"OUR SIDE HAS TO WIN"

― alpine static, Sunday, April 4, 2021 12:01 PM (three years ago)

this hurts to read right now

I'm perplexed by the idea that Luciferian Towers is any way forgettable. It's in my top three of their records

Hey it's subjective and a relative term too. My main point is pretty much all their records are awesome and you really can't go wrong starting anywhere. For me, Luciferian Towers is beautiful but lacking the "juice" to use some contemporary verbiage.

I have a soft spot for Asunder, Sweet - the drone in the middle section (Lamb's Breath especially) fills my whole body

btw I misspoke above - Asunder is one of my favs of their newer stuff, it's 'Alleluyah that I find a bit off. In fact that's probably my least favorite of all their albums, but it's still very good and has some nice highlights in Mladic especially

I might have posted it before, but there's a really good live recording of "Anthem for No State" that has a different arrangement to the album version. And a different name. I prefer it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBJoNhcArN4

It's heavier than black metal, without actually being black metal. There's an extraordinary truck driver's gearchange towards the end. I remember picking up F#A# in the wake of 9/11. It felt tailor-made as a soundtrack for those times, but I was surprised that it came out in 1997. It's spooky to think that the OP of this thread was posting back in February 2001. I'm thankful that the band still exists - it can't be easy keeping an outfit like Godspeed fed and watered for thirty years.

They could so easily have been awful. There's a certain kind of band that annoys me because their angst is obviously a put-on. I'm thinking of Coil, Dead Can Dance, Low. They're camp. Godspeed manage to stay the right side of camp. They're also one of those bands that I only listen to every so often, like Scott Walker, because you have to be in the mood.

I remember not liking Yanqui. It's not bad, it just felt like stagnation, as if they were doing the same thing again. I lost touch with them after that. I can't imagine how awesome they must be live. They're so Canadian! Also, on a musical level, having access to a room that looks like this is a life goal:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Hotel2Tango_TrackingRoom1.jpg/640px-Hotel2Tango_TrackingRoom1.jpg

There's a certain kind of band that annoys me because their angst is obviously a put-on. I'm thinking of Coil, Dead Can Dance, Low. They're camp.

big lol

I was about to say "I wonder when they're next going to play live", to which the answer is "six hours from now, in Lisbon, Portugal":
https://cstrecords.com/en-gb/pages/godspeed-you-black-emperor

Is there anything more Canadian than playing live in Bilbao? Not that I can think of. They're doing a tour of continental Europe. Sadly not the UK. I wonder if it's a Visa thing? I can imagine the whole band piling into a train carriage with their instruments and some croissants or something. Rehearsing on the carriage and annoying the other passengers, but they're technically a rock and roll band, so that's okay.

I liked a lot of Lift Your Skinny Fists... but had to edit a few minutes from each of the tracks, because I didn't feel they managed to integrate all the musical bits they were trying to include. But maybe GYBE fans would do the same to Tales From Topographic Oceans, I don't know.

caught them only a couple of years ago in the UK so I'd be surprised if it's a visa issue

I saw them in Glasgow in October. Probably too soon to come back to the UK

There's a certain kind of band that annoys me because their angst is obviously a put-on. I'm thinking of Coil, Dead Can Dance, Low.

lol what

would rather listen to any of those bands at their very worst than godspeed at their very best (and I like godspeed)

and this thread was going so well :(

sorry, couldn't abide seeing the good names of Coil, Dead Can Dance and Low being woefully misrepresented and dragged through the mud

low is camp??? not according to any definition of camp previously employed on earth

coil, yeah, they’re gay

dead can dance, yeah, they’re not gay (???) but there’s a heavily performative aspect to their work which enhances it. that’s goth baby

godspeed aren’t camp but are incredibly self-serious and they are so not goth. i mean good for them but i wouldn’t contrast them positively or negatively with these other approaches for an instant

They play in the UK regularly. Like treefell I saw them in Glasgow last year, and they were in the very same venue two years before. They also played Bilbao on (I think) the previous European tour, by the way. Not sure on the connection there with being Canadian, as Bilbao gets a good amount of gigs in general.

There are some camp elements to Coil for sure, I think they make it work and overall it makes them better. Dead Can Dance I can sort of see how some of it comes off as camp. Low, I don't see it, but I'm less familiar with their discography than the other 2.

I’m just assuming bad phrasing but “camp” to any of those is lazy trolling

I think you can assume worse than bad phrasing. This is so dumb:

There's a certain kind of band that annoys me because their angst is obviously a put-on.

yeah, like I almost couldn't think of three worse examples of artists who don't commit to the bit, so to speak

camp is always in thee eye of the buttholder, but i'd say old Low not camp, recent fuzzed-out electro Low and that latest Alan Sparhawk album, pitchin' a tent

There's a certain kind of band that annoys me because their angst is obviously a put-on

Morrissey was right there for the taking!

one of the interesting things about Godspeed is how much they have reverberated through montreal's music ecosystem. the studio that members opened (Hotel 2 Tango), which so many records were made at; even more important, the venues (Casa del Popolo and Sala Rossa particularly), which are not just vital spaces for interesting musicians visiting Montreal, but which host endless local artists as they emerge and experiment... i also think there's been a roll-on effect on Godspeed's politics - their collectivism, their seriousness, their anti-celebrity - even if it is sometimes mocked here (and also understood as occasionally hypocritical theatrics; but everyone's human).

i think they're a really important band. their impact extends way beyond post-rock, to sometime local folk like lhasa de sela, suuns, wolf parade, unicorns, mac demarco, arcade fire, ought, leonard cohen, etc, but also outward to acts like julia jacklin, SANAM, vic chesnutt, matana roberts, mashrou leila, and on and on.

it's almost like they've been excellent musically and a model for maintaining one's integrity for like three decades!

btw anyone else feel Yanqui UXO is by far and away the worst recorded record of theirs? The abrasiveness and thinness of it always holds me back from wanting to put it on. Most of the rest of their stuff is so rich sounding and dynamic (compare Yanqui to F#A# for example)

― octobeard, Wednesday, 26 February 2025 22:14 (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

ah, it's opposite day

everything on YUXO feels like it is melting, irradiated. one of the best sounding albums maybe ever?

to an extent where i'm really not into their other stuff nearly as much cos it doesn't sound like that

BBF3 being a weird joke about Iron Maiden singers is arguably more camp than anything from DCD or Low. See also a few of the songs titles on All Lights Fucked, and the phase 1 songs just being called after their direct influences (e.g. Gorecki, John Hughes, John Barry - later also called Song For Wanda after Efrim's dog that had died) before being given more weighty names for the final release (Moya, She Dreamt She Was A Bulldozer She Dreamt She Was A Field, 09-15-00 respectively).

Not going to argue with a band that covered the theme tune of Are You Bring Served being called camp though.

I'm in the "except when Mark Almond was a guest vocalist, Coil wasn't very camp" camp.

sean otm. those montreal venues are super chill

I have no idea if the Godspeed crew were in any bands prior to their formation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them were in short-lived punk or hardcore bands as teens

I think it's not so much about camp as it is a seriousness of intent which, if played badly, can tip over into absurdity. Of the four bands mentioned I would say that Low, Godspeed and DCD are all serious musicians who wear their seriousness well. Only Coil manage to make their seriousness look silly.

They seem to have raised the bar here

https://pitchfork.com/news/godspeed-you-black-emperor-remove-music-from-streaming-services/

no reason given and it's other streaming services too