Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada E.P. CD (album) cover


Godspeed You! Black Emperor


Post Rock/Math rock

4.39 | 142 ratings

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Prog Reviewer
5 stars 4.6 stars

If some of the music found here ends up in a movie, I could claim that I couldn't think of anything that could have been done better. This brooding, minimalist, and apocalyptic music never fails to draw me in and see barren landscapes, or even imagine I'm watching a brilliantly edited youtube video.

The disc begins with a group of violins, some of them playing dissonantly in the background, while some other violins wail slowly, as if showing a bunch of firetrucks and ambulances rushing in to a tragedy in slow motion. The mood is very apocalyptic and reminds me of music that could fit perfectly in a 9/11 documentary. Later, A very slow and meandering echoed guitar with chimes starts growing slowly into a doomish symphony that will make you feel helpless and visualize yourself in the disastrous situation that your mind might conjure. It is not over, it gets worse: you will be faced with an urgent and desperate musical attack. In my case, the towers are collapsing, everyone is running desperately away from the black smoke of death. As you can see, this music is not for the faint hearted and if you love this song, there is a high chance that you would love the band since this song contains the elements that make their last album a success.

Moya transitions into the other piece and you can group them together into a thirty-minute song. This piece is more minimalist and features an interview in the background which does not distract you from hearing the music: it enhances the impact of the song. The paranoid interviewee starts calm but quickly gets angry and passionate. He describes a situation where he was at court, attacks the United States harshly, and later recites a very cynical poem. Meanwhile, the multi-layered dark ambient music follows the tone of the interview really well. I especially love the music involved during the later parts of the interview. After he talks of the end of the world and recites his scary poem, the music turns into an agonizing and chaotic wall of sound that is so intense that you might imagine imagery of nuclear warfare and the end of the world. After the climax of the album, violins reminding you of the first minutes of the album come back in a very haunting format that it will make you wonder how they could write and produce this hopeless type of atmosphere.

Simply put, a masterpiece of darkness, and some of the best music ever produced by Godspeed You Black Emperor.

Zitro | 5/5 |






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