Review Summary: A bloated first half undermines a brilliant second.
I am the world’s biggest fan of
G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!. After almost a decade of chasing the shadows of their pre-hiatus work, Godspeed You! Black Emperor had finally gone somewhere new. It felt fresh, it felt heartfelt, and it ended with a passage so beautiful that I teared up the first time I heard it. I thought that, after twenty-five years of futile anger at the world, the Canadian post-rock juggernaut had accepted their fate as ageing musicians, no longer trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was their early work.
Then October 7th happened. Then October 8th happened. Then October 9th happened. Godspeed have never hidden their fury at Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people – the brutal, heart-wrenching and
angry ‘09-15-00’ is named after the date the Second Intifada began, where thousands of Palestinians rose up against their oppressors. In 2024 it is impossible to avoid news of what is happening in Gaza, the West Bank, and now Lebanon. And of course, Godspeed You! Black Emperor have released an album titled
“NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD”.
Upon first listen, I expected
“NO TITLE” to be oppressive in its anger, to be dark to the point of being difficult to listen to. I was surprised, then, to realise that the first half of the album is standard Godspeed post-hiatus fare. I was immediately disappointed. ‘BABYS IN A THUNDERCLOUD’ plays as a mere imitation of what came before – predictable, unchallenging, safe. The first three tracks could easily fit on any of the myriad forgettable post-rock albums of the last decade. The new path that Godspeed had begun to forge with
AT STATE’S END! was seemingly completely out the window.
Of course, that is not to say there isn’t quality in the first half hour of music – the outro of ‘RAINDROPS CAST IN LEAD’ is undoubtedly moving, and its passage of Spanish is affecting in a quiet, subtle way, similar to the piano outro of 'Storm' from
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven. It just doesn’t
hit the way I was expecting it to. I’m not sure if I wanted
Yanqui U.X.O. Pt. II – I am a huge fan of that album and I doubt much could come close – but I was expecting some actual pushback against the ongoing genocide that Godspeed have always felt so strongly about. Where was it?
The answer, of course, is that this anger, this feeling of futility, this fear of the apocalypse that has pervaded practically every Godspeed album of the past, is laid bare in the final third of
“NO TITLE”. ‘BROKEN SPIRES AT DEAD KAPITAL’ is desperately sad, an outpouring of grief for the centuries of Palestinian culture wiped from the earth in the last twelve months. ‘PALE SPECTATOR TAKES PHOTOGRAPHS’ goes in a different direction: into fear, anger, and the most interesting drumming we’ve seen on a Godspeed record since
Skinny Fists. Then,
“NO TITLE” begins its final track with an almost classical-era chord progression, before, finally, returning to the ideas brought forward with
AT STATE’S END!. Bittersweet, slightly hopeful, slightly melancholy, a reminder that this will not go on forever, and that oppression will only last as long as we let it.
“NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD” is frustrating. Honestly, I think it should’ve been an EP. The final twenty-or-so minutes are Godspeed You! Black Emperor at their best, an atmospheric ride through misery, fear, anger, and cautious optimism, the likes of which we haven’t seen from the band since their debut all the way back in 1997. But the power of these final three tracks is stymied by a listless, bloated first half that feels largely like a collection of unrefined jam sessions. If the first half had been streamlined, given more of a direction, then the second half’s brilliance would feel more in place, and
“NO TITLE” could’ve been one of Godspeed’s best. As it is, it is simply another one to add to the list of their post-hiatus works.
