Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress

And the herd repeats...

Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the Canadian post-rock band, had released an album earlier this year.

It's *yawn* okay.

There's definitely nothing bad to say about this album other than it's pretty boring.  It's a four track album with all of the boredom residing in the middle two tracks.  I'm sure there are plenty of hipsters out there that would say that I just don't get the brilliance of the composition.  Maybe they're right; I don't know.  Let me try to explain why I think this album is boring.

I guess I'll start by saying that the two middle tracks really are the only problem on this album.  The first track "Peasantry or 'Light! Inside of Light!'" is really awesome!  It definitely stands up to some of their best songs, no doubt.  The closing "Piss Clowns are Trebled" is also really good.  They both have interesting guitar melodies and harmonies which are very reminiscent of what the band does best.  The textures are also incredibly interesting, with the violin being just gut-wrenching at times; clashing with the tonic guitars with their non-tonic tendencies.  Basically, I really enjoyed these two pieces and would recommend that you at least check them out.

The middle two songs, "Lamb's Breath" and "Asunder, Sweet" are a combined 16 minutes and 30 seconds of nihilism.  The only way you could be more nihilistic is if you wrote something similar to John Cage's "4' 33''," a piece that is purely silence.  Neither of these middle two pieces have a sense of melody, which in turn, means no sense of harmony, counter-melody, or key.  This isn't even that much of a problem if you like really progressive music.

However, these two pieces fall flat in one other major way which would even leave ambient music fans disappointed:  the textures in these two middle pieces are just unimaginative.  It mostly sounds like someone who put their electric guitar down and forgot to turn off the amp, a keyboard player that fell asleep with his head on a single key, and a rhythm section that is just flat out absent.

If you're going to talk about filler in an album, I don't know of a better example than this.  If there was any composition at all in the middle two tracks, it was lazy.  Throughout the middle 16 minutes and 30 seconds, the textures hardly ever change and the dynamics are stiff.  The performance is mundane and uninspired.  And this is a real shame because this is a band that gave us incredible compositions and performances in the past but in these two middle songs, the most work was clearly done in the editing/post-production.  But without much to work with, it leaves the middle of this album rather lack-luster, at best.  It probably would have actually been pretty cool if it was reduced to a 3 to 5 minute interlude.  Unfortunately, I think I would have to be stoned in order to not fall asleep during this snooze fest.

Perhaps I am wrong as I am not a particular fan of ambient music, but I just can't comprehend the brilliance if there truly is any.  However, in my opinion, this album is truly a mixed-bag.  The middle is boring but the opener and closer are some of the best songs the band has to offer.  I would definitely check those out and skip the rest.



Cover:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1f/Godspeed_You!_Black_Emperor_-_Asunder,_Sweet_and_Other_Distress.jpg