Godspeed You! Black Emperor: NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD

Since its release on the first Friday of October, Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD has festered. Not least due to WE ARE WINTER’S BLUE AND RADIANT CHILDREN’s “NO MORE APOCALPYSE FATHER” – the collaboration featuring Efrim Menuck alongside BIG|BRAVE’s Mat Ball and Ada’s Jonathan Downs and Patch One. Released just weeks earlier, “NO MORE APOCALPYSE FATHER” commanded its own space and time and, so good, it temporarily side-lined everything else around it.

There’s little doubt the Canadian post-rock veterans were built for these times. Forever forecasting the malaise we live in by channelling their polemic rage, GY!BE’s strident message through sound has resonated deeply in a powder keg world. One where conflict, cost of living and corruption have gone full circle from the extreme to normalisation.

Where the former is concerned, NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,3400 DEAD is exactly what it says it is. With Gaza continuously under siege, the death toll now almost doubling the number referenced on the album title, it’s this moment in history that underpins the GY!BE remit. And how could it not? If it didn’t, then GY!BE would be about as hollow as the politicians they’ve spent their existence viciously opposing.

WE ARE WINTER’S BLUE AND RADIANT CHILDREN: “NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER”

And speaking of, politics through sound is something I’ve talked throughout these pages in past. But the very definition of politics may just make it a bullshit notion. The same hammer of hope former Godspeeder and Esmerine drummer, Bruce Cawdron, spoke of in an interview back in 2022, this a far more powerful statement than any politician could ever conjure up. The force of art itself, exceeding everything. The trust it commands, outweighing any discourse or oration from any supposed leader, whether it be in power or aspiring to take it.

The very definition of politics suggests a flimsiness. A watering down through golden handshakes and horse trading from individuals operating hand over fist to maintain their dominance over others. The very nature of politics is power, and any human with it is deemed corruptible.

There are few acts that wash all of that away like GY!BE. Their noise, a clarion call. A protest music that ascends beyond the very thought of anything a politician stands for. It stands for breaking boundaries and vapourising systems. Resistance by any means necessary.

There is hope of freedom, and through the beautiful noise this is what GY!BE aspire to. Even beyond Gaza, framing the last 10 days alone makes GY!BE as important as they’ve ever been.

2021’s G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! was arguably the band’s best recordings since Menuck, Mauro Pezzente, Mike Moya, Thierry Amar, David Bryant, Aidan Girt, Sophie Trudeau and Karl Lemieux resumed in 2010. Later joined by percussionist Timothy Herzog and film projectionist, Philippe Leonard, the ensuing decade has flickered with the magic that initially made GY!BE the cultural marker in the world of post-rock. And of course, NO TITLE… is yet another vital memorandum.

NO TITLE… is more about the moment than underlining the majesty of any one composition. What GY!BE do here is underline the ebb and flow of life. The contrasts between atrocity and joy, the hope and hopelessness. It’s all captured within these 53 minutes.

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On opening piece, SUN IS A HOLE SUN IS VAPORS, strings are weighed down with a sullenness, as churning riffs and jittery percussion are enveloped in a new dread. BABYS IN A THUNDERCLOUD and RAINDROPS CAST IN LEAD juxtapose that dread with delight, as dark ominous drones roll in with the ferocity of a Cat. 5 Menuck and Trudeau push against it, creating swells that bestow the beautiful noise. Sound that parts the storm clouds, and through bending notes and droning all the way to the heavens, these moments are an endorphin rush of crescendos.

Meanwhile the orchestral doom of PALE SPECTATOR TAKES PHOTOGRAPHS is a dispatch from the wreckage. A clear definition of the dread that has always been the band’s driving force, and just when you think there’s no way back from it, through the thick plumes of smoke, GY!BE somehow manage to imbue hope on GREY RUBBLE – GREEN SHOOTS. They always do, and even though it may look like a mirage right now, GY!BE weave optimism through the gloom. It’s this contrast that opens up the mind that leads to a path of better times.

It’s a stirring moment. A moment where GY!BE defy the odds, and just when you think everything’s lost, GY!BE are still flailing that hammer of hope, not only suggesting alternatives, but also urging their disciples to follow.

As one gets older, the grasp on idealism can loosen, and this is why GY!BE exist. Their message, clear: don’t let the bastards get you down. Keep fighting. And on the back of NO TITLE… they fight like never before.

NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD is out now via Constellation Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.