Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Artist page

Explore Godspeed You Black Emperor

Godspeed You! Black Emperor returns with another soundtrack for our times. As the heretical anarcho-punk spirit of the title implies, Godspeed harnesses some particularly raw power, spittle, and grit across two riveting 20-minute side-length trajectories of noise-drenched widescreen post-rock: inexorable chug blossoms into blown-out twang, as some of the band’s most soaring, searing melodies ricochet and converge amidst violin and bassline counterpoint. Field recordings and roiling semi-improvised passages frame these fervent epics, and two shorter self-contained 6-minute pieces find the band at its most devastatingly beautiful, haunting, and elegiac. Poignant atmospherics, noise-drenched orchestration, drone, hypnotic swingtime crescendos, inexorably-layered towers of distorted clarion sound: G_d's Pee AT STATE’S END (2021) encapsulates every beloved facet of the band. Twenty-five years on, this new album is as vital, stirring, timely and implacable as any in Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s storied discography. Few rock bands in our 21st century have been as steadfast in letting the work speak for itself and maintaining a simple rule about non-participation in cultures of personality, celebrity, access, commodification, and co-optation. Following a seven-year hiatus that began in 2003, Godspeed returned to the stage in December 2010 and its post-reunion period has now lasted more than a decade, marked by hundreds of sold-out live shows and additional albums which have all been met with wide and high acclaim: ALLELUJAH! DON'T BEND! ASCEND! (2012), 'Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress' (2015), and Luciferian Towers (2017). Age: 17+ Event