Godspeed You! Black Emperor - NO TITLES AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD
After listening to the newest Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s album, I found myself touched and inspired to write something down. This is neither a technical review nor an opinion piece, but here’s my 2 cents on the album.
Side note: if you’re into post-rock and ambient music and are not afraid of long ass songs, definetely go check them out.
Searching for a meaning: experiencing beauty amidst tragedy
I used to be a big fan of gy!be, but I was fairly young and never looked into the meanings and political subtexts of their albums. As years passed, the way I listened to their music never really changed and kind of became even more passive, like a good, emotional background music that’s perfect for car trips. That’s one of the reasons why finding out about this release has been such a nice surprise for me. For most people, the band’s political involvement might be obvious, as well as their sympathy with the Palestinian cause, which was quite explicit in Yanqui U.X.O. (2002), but that wasn’t the case for me before listening to this album and I’m really glad that it made me look deeper into their music and history.
The album opens with timid, eerie screams in a desolate silence, accompanied by a hum that evokes the ringing in the ear after an explosion, but it wastes no time transitioning into nostalgic notes of a languid beauty that never completely fades away.
The first climax in “BABYS IN A THUNDERCOLD” sends chills down your spine but is for sure quieter than the heights reached in lift your skinny fists. The second climax feels mournful and angry rather than glorious and hopeful, and the descending strings scales is reminiscing of the F#A# post apocalyptic atmosphere, blending everything in a mix that fits the theme really well.
RAINDROPS CAST IN LEAD opens with the peaceful atmosphere of a summer morning that’s a bit too hot to enjoy and quickly gains momentum, kind of continuing the previous track and evoking the image of a fight and resistence that doesn’t stop, day after day. Then the night comes along with the only spoken words in the album which are just heartbreaking
“BROKEN SPIRES AT DEAD KAPITAL” feels like a damaged recording from a somewhat Schindler’s-list-esque soundtrack in which the dramatic double bass, drums and violin evolve into a less classical and more post-rock sound, gently bridging to the cynical sound of “PALE SPECTATOR TAKES PHOTOGRAPHS”, in which the indifference to tragedy and the apathy in growing accustomed to horror become increasingly loud.
Then comes “GREY RUBBLE - GREEN SHOOTS”, the final track of the album, which sums it all up: the anger, the despair, the question “what is there to say that wouldn’t feel like little more than pointless compassion void of any value and meaning?”.
“NO TITLE” reminds us that in a world filled with tragedy and man-made horrors beyond our understanding, looking for a reason, or even something as simple as words to comment on the state of things is naive and futile. Instead, we must resist even in times where hope is but a luxury, knowing that the only thing that can save us is the experience of beauty and the bliss the comes with it, so abstract yet present in the very real things of our everyday life, the objects of our gazing and all of our senses. As the tracks flow one after the other, we are invited to stop rationalizing the external world as well as our thoughts, and start experiencing our mind as a physical and sensible reality and viceversa, unveiling the true nature of one’s self and removing any layer of romanticization and mystification, in the most gy!be-heartbreaking-yet-peaceful way.
"
THE PLAIN TRUTH==
we drifted through it, arguing.
every day a new war crime, every day a flower bloom.
we sat down together and wrote it in one room,
and then sat down in a different room, recording.
NO TITLE= what gestures make sense while tiny bodies fall? what context? what broken melody?
and then a tally and a date to mark a point on the line, the negative process, the growing pile.
the sun setting above beds of ash
while we sat together, arguing.
the old world order barely pretended to care.
this new century will be crueler still.
war is coming.
don’t give up.
pick a side.
hang on.
love.
"
-GY!BE