Godspeed You! Black Emperor - 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!

(Constellation Records, 2012)

With characteristic little fanfare, Godspeed You! Black Emperor are back with album number four, an album that was announced the day they released it at a gig in Boston on the 1st October 2012, fourteen days before it’s official release date. In a time when record labels feel a need to give a release a good three month PR blitz prior to release to ensure complete saturation of the market, it’s a refreshing change of pace and a real thrill for fans of the band – a band who admittedly need no introduction or pompous self-aggrandizing. No cock-tease audio samples, no slow release, just an end product on your lap from a band who are spoken of in only the most revered terms as innovators, anarchists, and artists. Don’t fear friends, ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! is exactly the kind of Godspeed album you’ve been waiting ten years to hear.

And building on the innate sense of anticipation that is carried with a new album from a cult band, Godspeed immediately kick things into a flurry with opening opus “Mladic”, a song that had been performed by the band in a slightly different form all the way back in 2003 (along with “We Drift Like Worried Fire”). Atop a bed of drone, guitars chime and whine like some demented birdsong before a backbone of rhythmic drums, piano and distortion unfurls, propelling the song into an insanely energetic and chaotic episode. High guitar notes introduce a middle-eastern-tinged melody before the bass sweeps in to double up on the melody, adding significant clout to the now all encompassing atmosphere of noise the band has created. Ten minutes into the song and you suddenly realise that you’re short of breath and the hairs on the back of your neck are standing to attention – Godspeed have always been a magnificent band, but having been largely absent for ten years you can now appreciate just how much you missed them.

As “Mladic” simmers down, “Their Helicopters Sing” comes droning in. One of the two ‘drone’ tracks on the album, it sounds like the disorientated, shell-shocked aftermath of some air-strike. It’s on this song that I became intrigued by the disarmingly serene photograph gracing the cover of the album of a isolated, white, flat-roofed building in what looks like a desert or otherwise-arid landscape. One can imagine a scene in which this enigmatic building is soon levelled by bombs and gunfire, and “Their Helicopters Sing” soundtracking the ensuing, otherworldly, slow-motion chaos.

“We Drift Like Worried Fire” begins with tense plucked strings before relaxing into a glacial, Tortoise-like groove. A lulling, repeated guitar refrain is joined by strings and slowly building layers of noise and rhythm to euphoric effect. But just when things are seeming a bit too life-affirming for comfort, the song takes a decidedly minor-key turn, you’re left with a slightly bitter taste in your mouth and you’re reminded that in Godspeed’s world there’s no such thing as black-and-white. It’s all about the broad range of emotions and mental states, and judging by the ominous strings that lead the song out, not all is hunky dory in the world of Godspeed’s imagining. Final drone track “Strung Like Lights at Thee Printemps Erable” is the slow-burn comedown to the album, an atmospheric afterglow of amps warming down and order being restored.

You honestly couldn’t have asked for a better album from Godspeed You! Black Emperor at this point in their career. So many bands return after a long hiatus for the wrong reasons and sound like shadows of their former selves because of it. But Godspeed sound like they’ve picked up right where they left off, with the same intention and the same commitment to the music above any desire for glory, sales or lucrative tours. This is exactly how to do a comeback album correctly, now let’s just hope they don’t make us wait another decade for album five. Welcome back Godspeed, oh how we’ve missed you.

[Originally published by the Sleeping Shaman, 06/11/2012]
http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/album-reviews/g/godspeed-you-black-emperor-allelujah-dont-bend-ascend-cd-lp-dd-2012/

Efrim Manuel Menuck - Plays "High Gospel"

(Constellation Records, 2011)

In his nearly two-decade-long career, Efrim Menuck has distinguished himself as an innovative musician whose work with Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion has, at times, led the post-rock movement and inspired countless imitators. In those bands Menuck always managed to maintain a certain degree of anonymity and mystery, allowing us as listeners to disregard any sense of musical ego or individual personality in favour of enjoying the group effort of Menuck and his band members. On the contrary, Plays “High Gospel”, his first solo album, is perhaps the first chance we’ve had to examine Menuck’s own personal sensibilities completely on his own terms.

And the subject matter on the album indicates that Menuck is welcoming us into his world with open arms as he celebrates his Montreal neighbourhood (“Our Lady of Parc Extension and Her Munificent Sorrows”), remembers his lost friends (“Kaddish for Chesnutt”, an ode to his sometime collaborator Vic Chesnutt) and experiences fatherhood for the first time (“I Am No Longer a Motherless Child”).

Opening song “Our Lady of Parc Extension and Her Munificent Sorrows” features a life-affirming multiple-part harmony floating atop a gorgeous sea of droaning guitar feedback. This constant drone bleeds into “A 12-Pt. Program for Keep on Keepin’ On” but here it takes on a more menacing tone, lying underneath the creeping bassline and the layers of overlapping vocals before ending on a manic note with feedback and frenetic drumbeats.

“August Four, Year-of-Our-Lord Blues” is a gorgeous, instrumental ditty that will be familiar to fans of Menuck’s other projects. Likewise, “Heaven’s Engine is a Dusty Ol’ Bellows” starts the second half of the album in atmospheric fashion with a high gain guitar drenched in tremolo and reverb over the recurring bed of droning guitar. “Chickadees’ Roar, Pt. 2” is a haunting collage of screeching strings and a distant, echoing melody. All songs sound like staples of Menuck’s previous work but in the context of this album the overall effect makes the songs feel more intimate, gives them a meaning that the song titles may never reveal to us listeners.

“Kaddish for Chesnutt” is, as the title suggests, a commemorative prayer for Vic Chesnutt, the partially paralyzed cult singer-songwriter whom Menuck had played with on two of his albums. Perhaps the most emotional song on the album, it’s also the song where Menuck’s uses his less as an instrument and more as an actual tool for delivering his personal message. The results are heartbreaking and beautiful and at times it sounds like Menuck’s voice is ready to break with emotion.

Album closer “I Am No Longer a Motherless Child” starts with a lengthy sole guitar part before tapes loop in and Menuck begins to sing the song’s mantra: “Look at my boy/ Look at his smile/ I am no longer a motherless child.” The layers build up, more harmonies are laid atop one another, an infectious drum beat kicks in, a guitar plays a lilting solo, strings swell and all is well in the world. It’s as beautiful an end to the album as you would have expected from the man.

Plays “Holy Gospel” might not be the kind of album that fans of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Silver Mt. Zion were expecting from Menuck; perhaps they might not have expected him to produce an album that is quite so straight-forward and direct. But the album definitely fits into his body of work and it really is quite an accomplishment as it feels like Menuck is taking us on an emotional journey through a few eventful years in his life, something that many songwriters are unable to do. What’s more he does this without relying on telling the story with lyrics (indeed most of the lyrics on the album are obscured by noise) but instead creates moods and suggests emotions through the album’s soundscapes and musical collages. One can sense the joy in the opening and closing songs, the sadness in the ode to his lost friend and in between it all there are moments of mixed emotion. “Heavy Calls & Hospital Blues” is a sad piano ballad that features the ambiguous lyric “Your pretty daughter’s sleeping/There’s beauty in this world” for example. Likewise, the various sound collages are certain to suggest different things to each listener. This is by no means an easy listen but it will draw you in to a very personal story.

[Originally published on the Sleeping Shaman, 08/08/11]
http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/album-reviews/e/efrim-manuel-menuck-plays-high-gospel-cdlp-2011/

[Later reposted on the Roadburn Festival website as their "Album of the Day", 08/08/11]
http://www.roadburn.com/2011/08/album-of-the-day-efrim-manuel-menuck-plays-high-gospel/