There’s a reason why GY!BE can go out in front of a crowd and play one song and have that be enough, and that’s because Asunder is Godspeed: the Band condensed into one piece. Their building tension (plenty of that). The lulling drones. The tear-summoning climax.
At just 40 minutes, Asunder is also 13 minutes shorter than Allelujah! But despite its brevity, Asunder has more meat on its bones. And though it calls back to many of the strengths of early GY!BE albums, it also highlights an evolution of intent.
Asunder, Sweet is Godspeed at their most conciliatory, most bloody-minded and most untouchable.
Asunder… is a focused distillation of a composition that is one of the band’s most affecting pieces.
It’s an invigorating makeover of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s firmly entrenched sound, and thus Asunder is both a thematic and musical awakening for the band.
Asunder may not be the second or third best Godspeed record but its likely to be one of the best records you hear this year and heralds a band that is not yet done creatively. It's thrilling to see the kind of compelling adult this punky prodigy has grown into.
Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress is slim but huge, and tests the GYBE aesthetic with courageous enterprise.
The band might well still be fluctuating and developing, but, at least in parts on Asunder… they've truly perfected their sound, and there’s not many bands that that can be said about.
Asunder, Sweet begins in devastation and lament, takes time to plot, then surges with a single purpose: it is resolute and defiant, much like the players themselves.
While it takes a few listens to absorb, Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress captures everything we love about the gloomy experimental instrumental rock group.
The conclusion of Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress is, as musically foretold on F# A# (Infinity) in 1998, the undoing of a world. The process of evolution is destruction. In GY!BE's musical universe, everything has already passed over the margin and returned to the void from whence it came. What can be left but silence?
Here, the band seems to retreat from such (was it always over-)determination instead to make joyous, explosive anthems born out of the turmoil, a little less on-the-nose politically, but more on-the-nose noisily.
Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress has little to say and fails to spark the imagination in the same way GY!BE have always accomplished. It’s a crushing disappointment to hear a band of this ilk release something that sounds so much like its contemporaries.
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#52 | / | Rough Trade |