G_d's Pee At State's End! (studio album) by Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Triumphant, euphoric and transcendent.

GY!BE give us a dystopian soundscape that sounds somehow optimistic and existential in the same moment.

It's a start-to-finish listen - little (bar Job's Lament) works on its own, but is part of a larger whole. An expansive soundscape best experienced in the late evening when the world around you is quietening down.

For someone it might be not as triumphal or good as some of their previous records, but i really feel that kind of sensation throughout the whole record. It carries me away all the time

This is a weaker record in comparison to their stronger material but it still has moments of glory where quality shines through. The best example of this is on Job's Lament, which is the best song on this record and the guitar playing on that track is just phenomenal. Then there are a few other tracks which show off the bands brilliance but only in spells as they do go through slow stages. The feel of the record is classic Godspeed as well with it sounding menacing and apocalyptic with its drone like nature that makes you feel like your at the end of the world. Despite this, the record is just to slow for me at times which makes it quite uninteresting and boring. I feel like a big chunk of the record is unnecessary and it drags on for far to long. Furthermore, the highs and the crescendos aren't as good as on their other records and they feel a bit subdued on some tracks. The music gets a little repetitive by the time you get to the end of the release as well and I find myself waiting for the record to close. I also think they could be a little bit more experimental as their music sounds basically the same as it did 20 years ago and it could do with freshening up. Overall, this is a Godspeed album I enjoyed a lot less than I thought I was going to but if you are a huge fan of them you will find plenty of songs on here to love.

From HoldenM 01/11/2022 03:16

I am such a dummy for putting this one off for so long. I knew I would love it, and yet, I thought it would be a chore. Well, whatever the case, I'm happy to have listened to yet another great Godspeed album. The undisputed kings of post rock do it again with a release so uniformly excellent, so grand and absorbing and beautiful, that you might shrug it off as an average Godspeed project. But let's be real: Even a middling GY!BE record is better than 95% of whatever music is out there.

From Brad1770 12/25/2021 06:23

As a general rule I’m not into instrumental bands such as Explosions in The Sky and Mogwai etc however I make one exception for this musical gene and that’s of course GSY!BE. There’s simply something about the band and their music that I’ve always been drawn to such as its sadness, its end of time post apocalyptic feel, the sprinkling of field recordings, their stanch antiestablishment mantra, their mystery. For mine 2017’s ‘Luciferian Towers’ was something of a disappointment but all is forgiven with this 2021 release with the bands best pieces since ‘Allelujah! . . . . ‘ and one of the years best albums period

If you love music and I’m assuming you do, you simply have to hear this album. Play LOUD on speakers sitting in a comfy chair preferably enjoying a spliff while you do

From mdbaxter 09/24/2021 15:57

Not to familiar with the band's work so I'm not sure that I totally understood it but I found this album enjoyable. Feels like overcoming the oppressors.

Good album to study, I am not usually into instrumental album, but I loved Lift your skinny fists. This one is not bad either just a lot less flashy.

Exactly what you'd expect from a GYBE album. Huge soundscapes. Pulsing and crunching. Then the final part is melancholic and introspective. Excellent

Top 5 in best albuns of 2021 for sure

From Mercury 04/03/2021 03:51

sorry in advance for the following:


(Basically, I liked it. Everyone or nearly everyone reading this knows who this band is and what Post rock is and that this band and that genre are linked inextricably. It's a solid album. Leave now unless you want to read my unending comment which starts in 3... 2... )

1... ---------I don't know how I feel about this album. Not exactly. Same goes for this iconic band. And, as this band's work encompasses all existence and transcends life and is up in the ether hobnobbing with Infinity itself per their most ardent fans, I suppose this means I don't know what to think of life, the universe, or anything. Which, come to think of it, is true.

But, to elaborate, I don't know where my thoughts fall yet after 2 listens to this album about urine of god ending states. As with all GY!BE albums, this is a detailed and many-layered beast, grasping for questions and answers rarely asked or sought in rock music. All this without saying a thing. On first listen I was transfixed and transported and when the album ended I said "well, shit" and wondered if this was going to be my end-of-year number 1 album. On second listen my subjective response was a bit muted. Although, certain crescendos (they sure do love their crescendos and builds... don't worry this won't be yet another annoying nerdy asshat rant about "Crescendocore" and "oh, oh, this has been done, like, a million times, gosh!" or "wtf can't anyone hear that this is not gooood? it's nothing compared to Tortoise." blah blah blah. Don't worry, I can't stand those people as much as you can't stand them. ) and moments are just as mindboggling on second and now third listen as they were in my first. The things that maybe I was less engaged with were the shorter and less "buildy" songs, or, rather, parts or pieces. Although without exception each one of these tracks/parts, short and long, are rich and well-conceived, some of the hors d'oevre tracks left me less than blown away. I suspect this is an opinion that will change or at least develop with repeat listens and perhaps I'll start mentally stitching this newest Godspeed conception together. For now though some of the sounds at the beginning of the 2 main 20 minute pieces didn't engage me a whole lot.

But see, as I write this I am listening a third time, and you know what? I'm already starting to feel my opinions shift mercurially as I type. Damn you, Godspeed! Now I'm wondering again if this is AOTY contender. And this vacillation is making for a REALLY shitty comment. (Future self, 1 hour after typing last sentence, I end up yet again in between Really solid and AOTY, as of now, after 4 listens, its like top 10 album of year, okay lets continue and see what other crazy shit this wild ginger says...)

Let me talk through a couple of these tracks here and see if that helps clarify my opinions... Okay, starting with the end, "OUR SIDE HAS TO WIN (for D.H.)" is a pitch perfect, tear-inducing, muddy, noisy, serene and haunting ambient piece and a perfect closer to the album. The last minute of this thing made me feel like Frodo rolling out of Rivendell with the boys.

Now going back toward the beginning, I thought the opening bit with the word Military in the name, wasn't particularly special even 4 listens in, but finally 20% into "Job's Lament" shit starts getting tense and maybe i'm just too simple for this post rock stuff, but I get most hyped about those HEAVY bass notes and that staticy guitar as it builds up to the muscular close of that track. This leads into the first "Holy Shit...is you angels?" moment of the album for me, when the guitar comes searing in with the faint sound of voices melded in, that is a nice moment. Brilliant, really. Only lasts for a couple minutes, then some cool down from that high and then some gunshot noises annnnndddd close first big suite. The in-between track that follows and is jammed betwixt the 2 MEGA post rock suites "Fire At Static Valley" is quite nice. Its not the same level as the closer, but quite gorgeous.

Okay, and then as for the second big suite, I probably won't go into detail what I thought of each piece within like I did with the first, but I can say that almost everything about "GOVERNMENT CAME pretentious coordinates or something" is dope. Almost all 11 minutes of it was candy to me ears. The first 5 minutes are build up and pretty good build up as it has that dark power that is what I loved about F#A# Infinity, but its all foreplay to the moment when the soaring guitars, well, when the guitars soar. lol. Then they do that post rock thing where it gets intense and then more intense and then more and at some point you notice you're not breathing, you're eyes are squinting unflatteringly, and you're mumbled "Stop, No, I can't take it!" turns into euphoric shouts of "No, don't stop! don't STOOOOPPPP!!!!". Its orgasmic is what I'm saying. And just like orgasms, despite being played out and ever so familiar, they're quite good. From there there is more slow noodling as if they're getting themselves ready for another go-round, followed by another (less impactful, yet still gorgeous) epic crescendo. And then BOOM! We are back to where we started, which was the end, and that final god-tier ambient closing track.

The name is silly, but Idk maybe I am just basic. Seems pretty weird. The cover is, on first glance, underwhelming - BUT, I like it now that i look at it. has a certain circular, symbolic meaning. Said symbolism and cover maybe influenced my hackneyed attempt at such a round-about structure to this comment and track break down.

And as far as how this fits/ranks in their discog, well I'm far from a mega fan of this band. I like/love their 1997 album because it has the word blues in one of its songs and that is an instant winner in my books. I love their 2000 album, but of course I'm contractually obligated to say that on this site and on this internet. But in all seriousness I haven't listened to Lift Yr Skinny Fists in years, but there was a time when I was in love and thought I'd discovered the holy grail of music when i heard that. Never heard Yanqui I don't think, and I really like their legendary 1999 EP although I've only heard it once and can't say what I liked about it. When I first joined this site in 2012, I was caught up along with almost every other BEA member in the recent release of Allelujah... Don't Bend Ascend. As a matter of fact, I believe that was the VERY FIRST album comment I ever made on this site. I loved it and still do tbh. I adore how fucking brutally heavy that album is. Haven't heard their 2015 or 2017 offerings. All that is to say I don't really feel I have any strong context or freshness to any relative quality assessments. I will say that I really really liked this album. It hit me at the right time and I am very glad its in my life. I am still not someone who will get excited about Post Rock when placed as a genre on an album, as a matter of fact I kinda avoid such albums. Not sure why. Maybe I like music that is more immediate and less drawn-out than what that genre tag evokes.

Anyway, this will end up being the most unstructured (aka least structured) of all my 2021 chart/album comments and my longest and my most deserving of ridicule and the one with the most bad English (which is saying something). I will close by saying, "cool album". The highs are heaven, the lows sound like somewhat by-the-numbers GY!BE things analogous to a nice serene Nebraska cornfield.

Oh and one final added comment, regarding the general darkness or vibe of this album, I felt like it was the least dour, apocalyptic of the albums I've heard by them. All their albums have some moments of soaring beauty, but I felt this had several that felt almost religious and not in a end-of-days type of way either. Anyway, I have seen comments saying this has a a deeply dark atmosphere, and maybe that is just a personal reaction thing, but I personally found it refreshing how GY!BE sounded a little less morbid this time around.

cool album