Godspeed You! Black Emperor return and ascend
Almost exactly six years ago I wrote about Godspeed You! Black Emperor and how much I missed them. At that point they were three or fours into a hiatus that seemed like it was heading into Never Going To End territory. A few years later I had pretty much given up hope of ever seeing the band live. Or of ever hearing a new record.
In 2011 I finally got to see them live. And today I am holding a new Godspeed LP in my hands while the crushing music fills my ears. It’s kind of surreal.
In that post from 2006 I wrote:
Like many other Godspeed fans I’ve been hooked up to a verrrrrry slow I.V. drip of two unreleased Godspeed songs that they played live in 2003 before scrapping a planned tour of western North America, announcing an indefinite hiatus, and disappearing into side projects. ‘Albanian’ is a monster of a track that eclipses anything off Yanqui…even shitty recordings can’t hide the sheer ferocity of this song. Another new song, ‘Gamelan,’ while less immediate, does embody a lot of what Godspeed were/are about. In fact, if the band went into the studio, put just those two songs down and put it out I’d be thrilled.
And lo and behold they did exactly that. Albanian became Mladic. Gamelan became We Drift Like Worried Fire. And two songs I’d been listening to crappy recordings of for years are now a new album and sounding more vital than ever. ‘ALLELUJAH! DON’T BEND! ASCEND! is pretty much exactly the album I had been hoping for for much of the last decade. Truly impressive stuff. Check out the record below.
And be sure to read the entire transcript of their recent interview with the Guardian. Rock ‘n’ roll, kids.
