Godspeed You! Black Emperor – G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!
On G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END!, Godspeed You! Black Emperor have created a perfect soundtrack for these strange times
Much like Run the Jewels perfectly captured the mood during last summer's Black Lives Matter protests, there are few outfits better suited to produce an album during a global pandemic than Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Barring their seven-year hiatus, for 25 years the Montreal-based, anarcho-punk orchestral group have created music ruminating on what the apocalypse would sound – and look – like.
There's no mistaking this for not being Godspeed; distorted, haunted field recordings, ambient drones and select, reoccurring guitar licks pepper this relatively brief (for them) record. Opener A Military Alphabet..., starts as a much darker response to the band's opus Storm from Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, but alongside the epic GOVERNMENT CAME... it progresses into a stoner metal suite. Meanwhile, the two shorter, more ethereal tracks provide calm – and hope – in both the eye and subsequent climax of the storm.
Produced by The Besnard Lake's Jace Lasek, with socially distant measures in place at Montreal's Thee Mighty Hotel2Tango studio in October 2020, he's done a tremendous job making the band's seventh full-length come to brilliant, vibrant life. On G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END! Godspeed has created a perfect soundtrack for these strange times.
Listen to: A Military Alphabet..., GOVERNMENT CAME..., OUR SIDE HAS TO WIN (for D.H.)
godspeedyoublackemperor.bandcamp.com