Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Getting into Godspeed You! Black Emperor is really daunting. Their songs (and therefore albums) are incredibly lengthy and feature these linear progressions that move from one musical passage to the next. It requires a lot of commitment that it is really difficult to muster in our accelerated, post-Vine world. It's absolutely worth it though as the Montréal collective, who often consists of around ten members at any given time, can create these wonderfully cinematic and sweeping rushes of instrumentation; making their work some of the most emotional experiences you can find in music. To start that journey, let's look at the band's one and only EP, 1999's Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada; a two track offering that still clocks in at just under thirty minutes.

The EP's first track, Moya opens with a vibrating drone slowly joined by strings who initially keep to a rigid tone in order to bolster that drone's intensity. The strings start to break off playing complimentary melodies that are very mournful in nature. The second third of the track starts to introduce more instrumentation: guitars, glockenspiel, and drums start to fill out the sonic space. In this passage we get some great tremolo guitar strums creating never-ending walls of sound as lead guitars and violins trade melodic solos. In the song's final moments, we get this giant build where all the instruments ramp up over a militant snare roll and release into this epic section where everyone seems to be playing in unison. It's the EP's most explosive moment that dissipates rather quickly as it prepares to go into the next track.

We seamlessly transition into Blaise Bailey Finnegan III, which starts off with my favourite moment on the EP. We get this cycling phrase of clean guitar harmonics with the occasional swell of cellos and violins, but the most prominent component is a candid voice recording of a disgruntled man who shares his disdain for all authority and government. At the height of the man's anger, there's a rush of heavenly instrumentation that beautifully cools down the heat emanating from the unknown rambler. After this emotionally dichotomous passage comes the weakest moments on the EP in my opinion. We get another section with all these layers of instrumentation, but I don't find the melodies all that compelling. There are also some underlying tuning and tone issues that make these instruments clash more than they meld together. We get another excerpt from the disgruntled man who this time recites a plagiarized poem that heavily borrows from an Iron Maiden song before going into a heavy rockin' passage with up-tempo drums and more walls of wailing guitar. We finish off with a gentle passage of strings that mirror the mournful opening of the previous track; essentially coming full circle.

As far as the technical side goes, a part of me wishes that the recording was a little more high-fidelity (especially as far as the drums are concerned). This seems to be a common characteristic of Godspeed's earlier work. However, the trade off is that everything does feel live. Exhausting all recording resources in order to capture (by my count) nine performances all occurring simultaneously. It really feels like they captured a lightning in a bottle moment. Keeping that in mind, I think I can reconcile with the somewhat lo-fi recording. All things considered, this is a pretty powerful piece of instrumental rock where you can find passages that are tension-building, lush, noisy, and heavy all within its thirty minute runtime.