Album Review: G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!, Godspeed You! Black Emperor

By Resonate | July 9, 2021

Words by Louie Kalamaj

“This record is about all of us waiting for the end… this record is about all of us waiting for the beginning.” This is how Godspeed You! Black Emperor have prepositioned their adventitious 7th studio album, G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END. After pre-ordering, unpacking, and dropping the needle on my own version of the record, somehow, beyond Godspeed’s mythos, and their multifaceted musicianship, the post-chamber rock band have managed, just through the vibrations of their instruments, to ruminate on their years of juxtapositional success and ongoing injustice. As politically cryptic as the post-rock luminaries love to be, this work is no different. Where the valiant marches of Job’s Lament, First of the Last Glaciers and Cliffs Gaze capture the band’s four-year dormancy, the heart-wrenching OUR SIDE HAS TO WIN (for D.H) is possibly one of the most soul-shifting pieces the band has produced. Bursts of gunshots over the lyric “where we break how we shine” places efforts of anti-authoritarianism into pieces of shattered waste. For art that captures the imagination, changes your outlook on life, then the newest release from Godspeed You! Black Emperor is the perfect beginning.

8/10

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