Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress
GY!BE's fifth may not be their best but is a fine album none-the-less.
Released 16th March 2015
Godspeed You! Black Emperor // Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress Constellation
Issued with no pre-warning and no hype, GY!BE’s fifth full length album is another guerrilla release.
Going against tradition, I'll start with Piss Crowns Are Trebled, the last of the four tracks on offer. Without wishing to surrender to hyperbole, this is simply the best thing GY!BE have ever recorded and may be one of the most perfect things I have ever heard. Like the soundtrack to an imagined film, this ebbs and flows, rising and falling in volume and intensity over a never dull, always interesting thirteen minutes and fifty seconds.
The other three tracks don't reach the same standards. Opener Peasantry, or 'Light Inside of Light' is a great riff but, good as that riff is, that is pretty much all the song is, at least on first listen. Both Lambs Breath and Asunder, Sweet are more ambient and bordering on the atonal. Initially almost dull, all three give up something new with each listen.
This may not be GY!BE's greatest album but it is still a damned fine listen.
Pavlis (9/10)
As is becoming a traditional with GY!BE, this fifth full length album is issued with no pre-warning and no hype. On first listen, opener Peasantry, or 'Light Inside of Light' is a great riff but, good as that riff is, that is pretty much all the song appears to be. However, the track rewards repeated listening by giving up its secrets, seeming to gain richness and texture with each play. With tracks two and three, GY!BE repeat the trick. On initial listens, Lambs Breath and Asunder, Sweet are ambient, bordering on the atonal and almost dull. Several spins later and they are so much more than that. The jewel in the crown is the fourth and final track. Without wishing to surrender to hyperbole, Piss Crowns Are Trebled is simply the best thing GY!BE have ever recorded. For fourteen always enthralling minutes, this ebbs and flows, rising and falling in both volume and intensity to great effect. This doesn't scale quite the same heights as Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennae To Heaven but it comes damned close.
9/10
