When Godspeed You! Black Emperor returned to record after a long hiatus with Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! they weren’t quite releasing new music. The album consisted of pieces the Montreal collective had composed during the early 2000s, back when they were at their most prolific, and the album was simply a matter of getting long-performed work down in the studio. Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress contains music of a more recent vintage, which is potentially significant because following Godspeed has always meant grappling with a basic question: When you have one of the most distinctive sonic profiles in music—that trademark quiet/loud mix of soaring guitars, epic strings, and field recordings—how important is it to branch out beyond it? Do we want a Godspeed album that sounds like anything but Godspeed?
Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress, conceived a decade after their initial run, when they defined everything this band is and should be, does not offer a new wrinkle. There is nothing about this album—from the particulars of the recording to the riffs to the arrangements—that would have sounded out of place if they had released it in 2002. Change is not Godspeed’s way, but the other side of that coin is that, despite many imitators, there’s also nothing else out there that sounds quite like them. The shifts on this record involve pivots more than actual movement: At points, guitars are unusually prominent and the music feels a bit heavier. It’s also their shortest album. But beyond a few such tweaks, the album is Godspeed to its core, moving from thin drones to Wagnerian pomp and circumstance and back again over long, patient stretches.
As much as any record they’ve made, the music here is meant to work as one, and sequencing and flow is everything. They’ve been working out this material live for some time now, and fans have taken to calling the whole "Behemoth", an appropriate descriptor given its heaviness. Though there are four tracks, the album really happens in three movements. The first and third contain the slowly building refrains and crashing climaxes, and the middle two tracks are more of a single 16-minute piece consisting of drones, gushes of guitar feedback, and fragments of strings. On the vinyl version of the album, the A-side cleverly ends with a locked groove to suggest a sense of continuity, but the CD version finds the two middle pieces flowing one into the next.
Sandwiching the drone section between the two crashing fanfares makes good sense, allowing the album to breathe and suggesting more variety than it might otherwise. Opening track "Peasantry or ‘Light! Inside of Light!’" is the album’s highlight, and ranks with Godspeed’s best work. The guitar riff has serious weight and crunch to it, and the piece unfolds with a modal sweep. But the transformation the main line gradually undergoes, where a dramatically beautiful desert vista becomes a setting for a melody that suggests a drunken holiday singalong, shows that there’s still a lot they can do with their basic ingredients.
"Peasantry" and the closing "Piss Crowns Are Trebled" are so intense and grandiose they skirt self-parody, always a risk with this band. But it's possible to give Godspeed the benefit of the doubt, in part because of how they’ve conducted themselves throughout their career. In 2015, music like this is usually used to sell things, whether it’s a product or a television show. There’s so much feeling in it, huge washes of sound that could easily be regarded as manipulative, and capitalism inevitably strives to pair these kinds of sounds with product. As a listener, to give yourself over to this kind of soaring music, allowing yourself to be carried away, implies a certain amount of trust. Godspeed You! Black Emperor record and play instrumental pieces that exist to move you, using only the force of music, and in a space where sound is the primary context. It's a different kind of transaction. You have to let your guard down, and Godspeed have to transform feelings into compelling records. They're still on track.