GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR
Yanqui U.X.O.
Constellation
· While not much beyond the cheeky punctuational shift has changed, Godspeed You! Black Emperor squeezes out another masterpiece.
Taking into account the war in the Middle East (both ongoing and oncoming), Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Yanqui U.X.O. ("is unexploded ordinance is landmines is cluster bombs," according to the oh-so-cryptic liner-notes) carries an air of resigned defeat. While it's always a bit of a stretch to attempt to define any music as "politica," the schematics printed on the album's back cover (linking the major record companies with manufacturers of war mechanics), not to mention the running cover motif of bombs falling on a nondescript terrain, denote a particularly pointed target for GY!BE's epic blasts.
Two-part opener "09-15-00" recoils on a series of dramatic string-led shifts, perfectly suited to back the darkest black-and-white images of our world gone wrong – so perfectly that one can't help but wonder what Godspeed would have done in commemoration of "09-11-01" instead. While "Rockets Fall On Rocket Falls" holds a taut 20-minute groove (assisted by Rob Mazurek on trumpet), closer "Motherfucker=Redeemer" piles on a new coat of menace for an exhausting storm of electrical noise (and yes, in case you're wondering, it even rocks).
Introducing a union made in indie-geek heaven, the Montreal collective (scaled down from 13 members to a core of nine) left the safe haven of their home studio hotel2tango for Steve Albini's Chicago-based Electrical Audio.
Albini's patented hard-edged guitars and bone-crushing drums take Godspeed off the theatre stage and into the darkest of sonic alleys. While this lot has always managed to maintain a perilous balance between downright frightening and stunningly beautiful tangents, Albini ensures Yanqui U.X.O. remains forever dangerous.
GY!BE are a modern music enigma, an ever-changing mystery and a thrilling anomaly unto themselves. Yanqui U.X.O. is their finest moment – a parade of dead missiles, hungry kiddies and gorgeous mountain- and desert-scapes that few others are capable of replicating.
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