Artist: Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Label: Constellation Records
Released: 2012
Length: 53:09
Rating: 4.9/5
Post-rock is yet another one of those dumb genre inventions by music journalists who had no clue what to do with bands that played rock music, but totally differently from anything heard in rock up to that point. It wasn’t so much about experimentation as about flirting with other genres, and even more about reconstructing the typical flow of a rock song, rearranging a track’s dynamics and turning upside down the already pretty clichéd mindset of the rock genre at the time (that is, the late 80s and early 90s of the last century). So post-rock originally meant »after rock«, which makes it a mindset, not a genre with some typical sound, like the other, easily defined genres of the day. Journalists slapped the post-rock label on Public Image Ltd (the very first band with the tag, which NME supposedly came up with), Talk Talk, Slint and Godspeed You! Black Emperor too. But those bands are as different as, say, jazz and classical music. Public Image Ltd has more in common with post-punk than anything else, Talk Talk draw on progressive rock, art rock and jazz, Slint on post-hardcore and math rock, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor on classical, orchestral music, drone and noise genres and so on. Every band is completely different from the next, and yet they all got the same label – post-rock. And that’s exactly why Godspeed You! Black Emperor stand out here in a way. Because even if they weren’t the first with the label, and even if they’re maybe not everyone’s favorite of those four, they shaped post-rock not as a movement but as a genre. As something typical of a genre, as a sound that was then copied and could be labeled as a genre. Music that recalls the structure of soundtracks or classical music, that involves lots of instruments and is entirely instrumental… the Godspeeds set the sonic and formal guidelines for this new mysterious genre that nobody knew how to define, a genre that today perhaps stands out the most among the more »alternative« genres in terms of creativity and, last but not least, even popularity. So they may not be the first with the label, but they’re definitely the founders of post-rock as a genre.
So the news that the Godspeeds had put out a new album after a whole decade guaranteed euphoria among every fan of post-rock sounds. The band is extremely secretive about pretty much everything they do anyway – nothing was heard from them after 2003-4, and although there was never any official statement about a hiatus or a breakup, in 2010 or 2011 they started playing shows again, with no media fuss or promotion around the decision. This year, at the September and October shows, they started selling a vinyl record with a cover that was totally unknown to the audience (yet, thanks to its dark, post-apocalyptic photograph, strangely familiar), bearing the title ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!. It was in fact a new album, obviously recorded without any promotion, announcement or other forms of communication about its status that could have involved the media. The Godspeeds are famous for really not liking music journalism in its described form and mission. ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! was sold only at shows (on November 14 you’ll be able to pick up your vinyl at a show too, since the Godspeeds are stopping by here in Slovenia as well, at Kino Šiška, more HERE), and it officially came out on October 16. And maybe that’s exactly why it got an even bigger response from listeners than it otherwise would have – at the shows the new vinyls, as expected, went in a flash, and on release day they immediately sold out their stock of CDs and LPs. That’s actually a step beyond the Radiohead stunt with the album In Rainbows, flipping the bird to the capitalist music industry. It’s another firm statement that a band (and with it both music and people) stands above the political and economic system, which the Godspeeds always attack directly and relentlessly with their working concepts anyway. ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! reflects this political activism too, with the inside of the cover screaming »Fuck le plan nord« (which refers to a five-year economic plan in Canada, backed by industry and opposed by the whole community of environmentalists) and »Fuck la loi 78« (a protest against the law that was supposed to ban all student protests). So, to sum up their mindset: »Fuck à notre gouvernement!« (»Fuck you, (our) government!«).
The songs on the album also refer, one way or another, to one thing or another going on in the world. The first and longest track, »Mladic«, refers to Ratko Mladić, the Serbian general who was indicted in 1995 by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague for war crimes, genocide, complicity in genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war, and who was only arrested last year, on May 26, in Serbia. At first glance the track is a classic GY!BE piece, with all the experimental-epic moments you’d expect from them, but at the same time it’s neither as slow nor as sad as some of their most representative ones (maybe the dirge »The Dead Flag Blues« most of all). Instead it’s powerful, punchy, slashing, angry and mighty in its defiance – GY!BE have probably never sounded angrier and harder, and their nihilistic resignation from 10-plus years ago has clearly turned into the pissed-off angst of every conscious human being. The track ends with the sounds of rebellion – the clanging of pots and pans, recorded in Canada at a protest against the law banning student protests. Incidentally, »Mladic« had already been showing up live in similar forms after their last album before ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!, but only now got recorded; it used to go by the name »Albanian«.
The second track on the album is a brand new creation by the band, called »Their Helicopters’ Song«. It’s an interlude between two epic tracks and doesn’t have that signature GY!BE post-rock nature. It’s a sort of orchestral drone mantra, a slow, rolling tsunami performed by a small crowd of instruments, which sounds monumental already because of its structure and form, while the performance itself only adds to the mental trip, that genuine, authentic experimental GY!BE mind game with the listener’s psyche that we’d been waiting 10 years for.
»We Drift Like Worried Fire« (another track they’d played before, under the name »Gamelan«) is yet another story about the social state of our society. Only this one isn’t set against something, but running away from something. Running from reality to somewhere, anywhere, refusing to take responsibility, daydreaming, unwilling to face the monstrous everyday, covering its eyes and looking for a way out. In a way that makes it the huge opposite of »Mladic«, though on the other hand it’s just one more reaction to today’s terrible state of society – and that includes the political-economic as well as the moral and value-based human condition. The track is full of the ups and downs of the runaway/runaways, from beautiful, dreamy shoegaze moments to tense, dissonant and gloomy sequences, when the subject is for a moment (or longer) wrenched out of their illusion and into harsh reality. So if »Mladic« is a realist, »We Drift Like Worried Fire« is a romantic. Mentioning the band’s top-notch compositional skills again is probably unnecessary.
Finally comes one more drone piece, which crushes the preceding romantic and, as a detached observer, describes the state of the world today. »Strung Like Lights at Thee Printemps Erable« is the horrifying crash of today’s capitalist society, the insides of political representatives’ souls, the screams of war victims, the open mouths of hungry people and the trembling bodies of the homeless. It’s innocent, tortured people translated into sound. It’s Penderecki’s »Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima« for the 21st century.
‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! was worth the 10-year wait. The album’s concept is so perfect, so carefully thought out, and at the same time so heartfelt and personal, that it simply can’t be anything less than total perfection. The political activism of the Godspeeds, and especially their leader Efrim Menuck, has been common knowledge for ages (they were once taken for political terrorists at an airport over some propaganda flyers), and ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! is for him like a successfully executed Guy Fawkes plan. Of course, every listener can also enjoy the album purely for the music. They probably won’t feel the genius of GY!BE that way, but full enjoyment is still guaranteed, if not recommended.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor are probably the only band in the world who say more without lyrics than most bands with them. Who actually know how to announce, with a track title, just well enough what they then tell with painstaking precision and feeling through the music. That’s the fantastic ability that keeps art alive, that springs from the best possible blend of rationality and emotion, which only art can muster – music. With their new record the Godspeeds rise above the merely average fandom of drooling fans waiting for new records and new music, new shows and new T-shirts. The Godspeeds are first and foremost a voice of the people in the original sense of the word, bigger than an artistic movement as such, and so they transcend the human individual. That’s exactly why Godspeed You! Black Emperor are the best kind of artists and creators the world has to offer – they don’t just make music as such, they make a life philosophy that every single person should know for the sake of a better world.
Lineup
Thierry Amar, David Bryant, Bruce Cawdron, Aidan Girt, Efrim Manuel Menuck, Michael Moya, Mauro Pezzente, Sophie Trudeau, Karl Lemieux
Tracklist
1. Mladic
2. Their Helicopters’ Sing
3. We Drift Like Worried Fire
4. Strung Like Lights At Thee Printemps Erable
