Times are good when you get an actual update on new work from Canadian noise-symphony group Godspeed You! Black Emperor. It was only three years ago when they released their album Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! as a surprise release at their shows. When people ran to the internet to tell the world, it just did not make sense. However, this formal announcement may be even harder to swallow. This time, we see longevity with the band. We cannot speculate that this is a one-off that a reunited band wanted to get off its back. This was all real.
Their new album, due at the end of March, is called Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress. The first song released is the opener Peasantry or ‘Light! Inside of Light!. Well, it’s more like a lengthy excerpt and not the full song. Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s songs contain movements and separate parts, so this clip may very well be an entire piece connected to a larger whole. If so, we are only getting a piece of the build up and not the majestic pay off.
Even with that in mind, this clip has a way about it. It is driven and pounding. If anything, at first, it feels more like a track from Thee Silver Mt. Zion (or whatever incarnation the band wants to be this week): A group consisting of a few members from Godspeed. This is the most upbeat and rhythm-centered they have been in a while, as they usually focus on the sonic sounds their noises can make. This song is groovy, and while that may not be something you’d imagine with Godspeed, it feels like it is meant to be.
Even with a signature style, Godspeed have changed up their influences on each album (Allelujah was based heavily on rhythms from the Middle East, for instance). So far, Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress is sounding somewhat jazzy and blues based. There are still pillars of feedback and coasting drones, but there is a heavy focus on percussion and slight steadiness.
While we wait for the new album (or at least the rest of the song), we are left with this interesting shard. It’s the Godspeed we all know and love, but it is different enough to keep us guessing. Is this the only part of the album like this and we have been misled? Is the whole four track release going to echo what Peasantry or ‘Light! Inside of Light! brings? We have only but a month to wait, which was more promising than us not knowing they had new material coming out soon at all.
