Godspeed You! Black Emperor* – Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress

Tour de Force in songwriting, this album is imo their best. One's mind won't venture at all while listening to this. Better than Lift ur Skinny Fists, and F#, apologetically nuanced, this is Godspeeds world opened up for your reflective pleasure. This band is already something else, this release is the cumulative revelation of their rather brilliant collective

We are once again charmed and amazed by the new creature conceived by Godspeed You! Black Emperor and this is the proof that the Canadian band is capable of reinventing its music without abandoning the emotive core that marks it. Their fifth full length album powerfully claims attention, especially of those willing to dive only on the surface of it, now that the sensationalist enthusiasm generated by the reunion has waned. Sonic waves opening Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress show from the very beginning that we are swimming in significantly different waters from the ones already known. So heavy and sturdy as never before, Canadians recall undulant drones of last Earth albums (with devastating feedbacks and walls of distortions) more than post rock music – genre of which they are considered among the greatest interpreters. In less than 45 minutes there is no trace of ambient noises, distant voices or sonic fragments that usually enriched the emotionality of past albums. Composed during last tours and already performed live several times, the new opus by GY!BE has been shaped through time until it reached its essential form, proving to be the most synthetic and concise in the band career, yet at the same time the one that mostly exalts the opposites of the poetics of the band. While opening and closing deeply plant their roots in the rock sound of distorted guitars, the central core flows in one of the deepest cosmic oceans ever conceived by the band.