Godspeed You! Black Emperor - 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! (2012)

This LP is definitely one of GYBE's most interesting ones. After all, it's their first records after the 7-year-long hiatus. A lot has changed over these 7 years, and it's explicitly reflected in the band's very apparent change of sound. Before the hiatus, GYBE's music was very sparse and minimal-sounding, why at the same time being exceptionally dynamic, emotional and haunting. Over the years, they had become more louder and noisier, but the overall sound stayed pretty consistent. After the hiatus tho, the band's approach music and aesthetic shifted to more streamlined, confident and much more down-to-earth versions of former selves.

First of all, they are loud now, and I mean LOUD! The songs are heavy and borderline punky in nature. Secondly, their fascination of drone music resulted in the actual inclusion of two bone-fide drone tracks within the LP's tracklist. All the post hiatus live shows even open with a "Hope Drone" - an improvised, wall-of-sound type of piece that develops smoothly into whatever song they play next. The same happened with live outros. Back then they would often play a stunningly beautiful, minimally arranged version of "Dead Flag Blues Reprise", with glockenspiel, violin and pretty unconventional percussion. After 2010, they ditched the quiet outros completely, and replaced them with long "noise outros" that gradually fade out. Also, encores (and field recordings/samples too to some extent...) became a huge rarity. All of that changes kinda divide the fans too this day. Some people seem to hold some kind of grudge to ADBA and subsequent releases... They say that the band isn't what it used to be and that the drones are boring and uninteresting and stuff. While I think it's all understandable I wholeheartedly disagree and condemn this approach. All the changes in Godspeed sounds result from a musical journey the members experience while creating in the adjacent bands or their solo careers. It's especially apparent in the very smooth change of sound that ocurred in Silver Mt. Zion - they went from F#A#'s quiet style into ADBA's aggresive noise punk seamlessly throughout their discography. The transition here occured slowly - album by album, show by show. I recommend you all to check this out! Anyway back to the topic... I love post-hiatus GYBE as much as pre-hiatus. The drones, the textures they were using, it all is so interesting and fits the whole GYBE spirit very well, no matter what some RYM bros say...

The first track of the album, "Albanian" (or "Mladic", as it's titled here now) is a fan favourite classic. It's among the most menacing sounding pieces I've ever heard... The song starts with a creepy but moody and tone-setting sample, and then it builds slowly, from drone (with evil scary violin slides!), through percussion into the loud angry madness of intense, pounding arrangement of sonically interesting riffs and Sophie's bitter violin melodies. Then, the main theme kicks in... It sounds really hateful and furious... and also albanian, hence the title. Some people around the web even call it "balkan riff", tho for me it has more of a middle-eastern flavour to it. The song's noise solo leads to a slower section that then collapses and derails into the soaring outro that comes back after another noise section with even more anger and pure primal energy. At the end, another sample plays - a recording from 2012 Quebec students protest. For almost a decade, this will remain the last field recording the band incorporated into any studio recording...

The song debuted in 2003 - then only known by it's live title. It felt drastically different then... It was much less driving and a whole lot more and manic sounding - it basically had Yanqui's musical aesthetic. It featured a key change at one point and a totally different (in my opinion a lot better and more emotional sounding) outro, with a different, more slow and Godspeed-y feel to it. The final chord had a one or two more "spicy" notes to it, so it sounded less resolved and even more dramatic. There are also many more live-exclusive features to "Albanian", such as an extended drum passage with some flamenco-esque muted notes by Efirim (I think?).

The latter musical half of this record is formed of the ever elusive "Gamelan", or "We Drift Like Worried Fire". This hardly ever performed piece is the one of the most purely bittersweet musical experiences you can possibly imagine. For every moment full of anguish and darkness, there comes a genuinely happy and beautiful major-key melody. The song slowly builds and goes through all these emotional sections (some of which being GYBE's best moments ever!), each completely different in vibe from another, only to resolve in an ambiguous but cathartic manner... Apparently it's inspired by Javanese Gamelan (!) music, but I don't really see the connection. Probably it was much more apparent in their earlier performances of it, of which only one was recorded.

Early "Gamelan" is more drawn out and repetetive, again resembling "Yanqui UXO" stuff. I really enjoy this rendition, particullary for its more toned down approach, but the outro they did in the later performances is one of my favourites moments of this song, and in this 2003 version it is absent. They played this major-key, fast, almost shoegazey passage, that increases in madness of collapses into the mysterious and evil sounding outro that slowly fades out along with a hum of amps. Earlier version of this song, while incorporating some sections of this outro, ends with main riff played dramatically a couple of times, which imo feels almost kinda lazy... It's still an unbeliveable and breathtaking song!! I love it.

Now let's talk about the drone tracks. People seem to generally not like it, but they are appreciated in more deep fan circles. I like them a lot! When I first heard this album, I didn't even notice they were supposed to be just interludes - I thought they are legitimate songs and I especially remember being hauted and amazed by "Their Helicopters' Sing". Something about this title resonated deep within me. Nowadays I prefer the latter one - "Strung Like Lights", for it's very interesting sonic evolution throughout it's runtime. Curiously enough, it was sometimes incorporated into the opening "Hope Drone" pieces at live shows! Another interesting facts about both of the drones here is that when the album leaked online (yeah that happened, the band was selling the LPs at their live shows before the initial release...), the disc containing all both drones was ripped with too much RPM, so these two "songs" going around p2p file-sharing websites were in sped-up, "nightcore" versions...

Anyway, to recap - it's one of the most interesting album I know of. There's so much to discuss about the songs and their evolution over time, the lore and the band overall. It marks a begining of completely new (for some reason somewhat divisive) era for the band. I love this album but it's extremely dark, cathartic and bittersweet, so I don't put it on often. Regardless it's one of GYBE's most legendary and remarkable releases...