Godspeed You! Black Emperor covers political topics

Although the band Godspeed You! Black Emperor is decades removed from their apex, their newest album confirms that they still have that same flame burning inside.

Continuing on from the more guitar-heavy stylings of 2017’s ““Luciferian Towers” and 2021’s “G_d’s Pee at State’s End!,” the newest pieces the Montreal-based band debuted live have retained the faux patriotic guitar textures that made that record so powerful. With this newest album’s title, ““No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead,” the band also continues a long history of overtly political statements within otherwise instrumental pieces, referencing the death toll in the current Israeli invasion of Gaza.

Unlike some recent releases, “No Title” has a focused pace throughout, only incorporating their trademark ambient interluding in intro track “Sun Is a Hole Sun Is Vapors” and the string quartet-driven “Broken Spires at Dead Kapital.” Godspeed’s lead guitarist Efrim Manuel Manuck takes the lead elsewhere, with the metal-inspired “Pale Spectator Takes Photographs” acting as a standout for the heaviest shades of the band’s sound.

The name of the game here, as always for Godspeed, is post-rock, a genre known for its patient dynamics and a defocus on typical rock compositions. In fact, the only actual words spoken throughout the record are from a Spanish poem by Michele Fielder-Fuentes on the funereal “Raindrops Cast in Lead” whose title references the Israeli codename for the 2008 Gaza War, Operation Cast Lead.

Godspeed has never been afraid to wear their leftist sentiments on their sleeves, and nowhere is that more blunt on “No Title” than centerpiece “Babys in a Thundercloud,” dedicated to children killed in conflict and lead single “Grey Rubble – Green Shoots.” The latter, although ostensibly about the destruction of Gaza judging by the title, actually acts as a surprisingly uplifting closer, embodying the commonly invoked belief amongst Godspeed’s discography that the people have the power to change this world.

It may not be the best Godspeed You! Black Emperor album in the last decade, let alone of all time, but “No Title” is definitely one of their most essential on a thematic and a directional level. I am particularly struck by how they can evolve the sound of their last two albums into something far more alienating and dissonant than either “Luciferian Towers” or “at State’s End.”