Throughout the years since the release of their debut album, Godspeed You! Black Emperor (exclamation moved for this album) have become known as one of the leaders of the post-rock movement along with Mogwai and Sigur Rós.
f#a# was an enviable debut, with excellent tracks such as The Dead Flag Blues and East Hastings (featured in
28 Days Later).The guitar melodies were fabulous and song climaxes were earth shattering. Following that, was an EP and a double disc album. The last in line is this:
Yanqui U.X.O.. Steve Albini, known for the chaotic mess of
In Utero, had been recruited to produce the record, and possibly had something to do with a punctuation change. The back has a diagram linking major media companies to the manufacture of weaponry. In some way, I guess they're saying that not everyone is as innocent as it seems.
Weapon manufacturer diagrams and punctuation differences aside, the liner notes contain the following as an explanation:
"u.x.o. is unexploded ordnance is landmines is cluster bombs. yanqui is post-colonial imperialism is international police state is multinational corporate oligarchy. godspeed you! black emperor is complicit is guilty is resisting. the new album is just music."
But what does it all mean? For starters, the spoken tape samples of albums past are now gone. All 70 odd minutes of this three song album are purely instrumental. Why? No reason, I suppose, but it wasn't a move I would've made, as those samples added a lot. No longer will you hear the ramblings of a street preacher, or an elderly man reminisce about the good ol' days at Coney Island. In their place are extended sessions of boring, meaningless instrumental doodling, so much to the point that it might force you to skip the track. Ambient sections past were always in some way interesting, somewhat creepy, and usually both. This time they do nothing but wander around looking for a point for far too long until they finally just give up and make with the climax you knew was coming since the start.
Every song is pretty much the same, and not very enjoyable. The opening track
09-15-00 starts out in general Godspeed fashion, building slowly as more and more comes together. The problem is that it never goes anywhere. You spend the entire song waiting for it do something exciting, and after roughly 15 minutes, you finally get what you wanted. Cymbals crash, guitars squeel, and basses hum along as they all play away. Hardly worth it, no? The second track, also
09-15-00, is a slow string heavy piece that's more ambience than anything. It twiddles and dabbles but never does anything. A fairly worthless track, I'd say.
Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls fares better, with it's early transformation into their trademark wall of sound. What follows is about nine minutes of a slow, dark chugging cello-ish sound. Ocassionally, some other instruments will come in and speak a few words, but it doesn't help much. The end marks a revival of the song, which also doesn't help this borefest of a song.
Motherfucker=Redeemer starts off on the wrong foot with three minutes or so of nothing but xylophone/bell-related doodling. The others finally barge in and the song gets good for a while, until after the climax. Then it recedes into near nothingness, with more worthless, mis-guided ambience. The whole rest of the song is like that, so this one's about 3/8 good. The only song worth listening to from beginning to end is the last one, also titled
Motherfucker=Redeemer. It's similar to Moya, from
Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada. This one's a winner, and saves this album from a quick trip to the recycle bin. It builds in typical form until about halfway, when everyone goes into "wall of sound" mode. Cymbals hiss, basses chug, and guitars squeel. This is the saving grace, as it slows a bit, and soon explodes into glory. Another break, and back to the fury we go. It soon dies down as guitars squeel their way to the end of a good song.
It seems, with this, Godspeed have fallen ill to what I call "latest album failure disorder." Everything else they've done has been good, with this falling on it's face. The production has been shoddilly done, as everything is no longer crystal clear; it has a muddled quality to it. The soft, wonderful guitar melodies are pretty much gone. Instead you're left with meaningless wandering. Nearly every song is terribly boring, and it pains me to say that, as much as I love them so. The only good quality this has is the last song. That's pretty much it. I only see one reason to buy this, which, besides that song, is to complete your collection of post rock albums. Stay far away, otherwise. In the end, I can just write this off as a mistake and pray that any future albums are nothing like this.
SCRUPLES
