Split into four pieces, G_d's Pee is a declaration of dogged resistance amid what Godspeed call our "death-times" battles.
The depth and range of sentiment explored here lends G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! a truly cinematic quality, which is enhanced by compositional pacing and aesthetic sampling.
G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! is a game-changer ... Past projects created otherworldly walls halting progress. Now, they’re just obstacles to be overcome.
Godspeed like to dirty things up, to sink their hands into the dirt and see what kind of mud gets stuck beneath the fingernails. This is resistance music, built off the back of the most difficult year in the modern era.
The themes within all their compositions are ever-present and perhaps more important than ever at this moment in time.
There’s a cleansing quality to G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END. A dip into the baptismal pool that leaves us shivering in the afterglow. Or to put it in more current terms: the feverish aftereffects of a vaccine.
It’s fair to say that you generally know what you’re getting with new Godspeed albums these days, but that doesn’t make the appearance of a new album any less thrilling. G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! might follow a certain well worn path but still sounds magnificent, especially at volume, pulling you in like a rip tide.
With global events confirming their long-held worldview, the Canadian prophets of doom sound angrier, sadder and more beautiful than ever.
G_d’s Pee is less reliant on the thunderous quiet-loud crescendos of old. Instead, it finds its sound in glowing electric waltzes, piled high with massed guitars and sawing fiddles, that take up a riff and grind it into extinction.
Twenty-seven years on from their formation, their ability to convey the spectrum of both emotional and political feeling through the raw power of music remains unparalleled.
At heart, there isn’t anything profoundly new for the band on G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END, but truthfully, there’s still no other rush out there like it. For ardent Godspeed fans, it’s the perfect fix, and for the uninitiated, it’s as good a starting place as any.
On G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END!, Godspeed You! Black Emperor have created a perfect soundtrack for these strange times.
Their latest, G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!, lands roughly where we’d expect - but even so, these moments in particular feel reignited with an artistic spark we haven’t heard from Godspeed in years.
Having zigged for a while, Godspeed zags (of course) on G_d’s Pee, bringing back some of the inscrutable elements that made the band so interesting in the first place.
The best record the Montreal Godspeed You! Black Emperor have put together since 2000’s Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven. And that is no small feat.
Ultimately, G_d’s Pee at STATES END! feels like both a warning and a call to action. Rather than a passive statement of hope, ‘Our side has to win’ can be read as an active threat: ‘our side has to win because the alternative is unthinkable’.
The well-timed G_d's Pee is Godspeed's strongest material in almost a decade.
Contrary to many email greetings from the past year, these aren't "unprecedented times," a fact of which Godspeed are well-aware. That's why they're business as usual on G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END!, even if that's a mode they've typically before gone out of their way to avoid.
Fans of the obtuse Canadian post-rockers are unlikely to be overly concerned, as there are no significant changes to their experimental proggy bombast, even if there is somewhat less nuance than on their last disc, Luciferian Towers.
They’ve aged well as such, but G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!’s statement is more a moot reminder of a socio-political climate that, really, requires no reminder at all outside of mainstream news coverage, least of all one this laboured.
A bit of a belated return to form for Godspeed You!, but a welcome one all the same.
From the soaring crescendos of Lift Your Skinny Fists to the brooding, pensive atmosphere of F#A#∞, Godspeed You! Black Emperor made their name known by constructing long-winded and elaborate medleys, with field-recordings intertwined between each monolithic musical apex to help drive the album’s narrative. However, the Canadian collective, following their return after a decade-long hiatus, with ... read more
Drawing on both the early foundations that built their cult following and the present inspiration, Godspeed You Black Emperor delivers a searing album full of open-hearted truth. "G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END! "is a dazzling piece of music, as much in the power of the orchestration as in the imagery. A colossal experience to be lived imperatively as a fall with eyes closed. You could say it's a return to grace.
And if the year 2021 was a "pivotal" year for Post-Rock? In ... read more
Gave this about 5 or so listens, throughout the day and night
I might make a lot of awful half assed reviews, but when a new post rock album comes out by a big name, there is instant potential for it to end up on my sleep rotation. The only time I listen to music anymore is before I sleep, so that is a big deal
This is a great Godspeed album. It can sound a little repetitive at times, and it is very one note the entire time unlike older Godspeed albums, but it makes up for it with a new ... read more
Fav tracks:
- Fire at Static Valley
- Job’s Lament
Least fav:
- Cliffs Gaze / cliffs’ gaze at empty waters’ rise / ASHES TO SEA or NEARER TO THEE
#7 | / | Spectrum Culture |
#8 | / | Norman Records |
#16 | / | Piccadilly Records |
#18 | / | musicOMH |
#32 | / | Rough Trade (UK) |
#43 | / | The Quietus |
#49 | / | PopMatters |
#65 | / | MOJO |
#67 | / | Under the Radar |
#93 | / | Louder Than War |