GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR / 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! [2012]

A decade after their last full-length album, experimental post art-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor return with their suffocating and haunting 4th album, 2012's 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!

Returning in fine form with all the necessary ingredients to make a wonderful Godspeed album, the act gets as loud as they were on their first album. 'Allelujah!  nods it's head to Ennio Morricone and Middle Eastern music through a sonic wall of distortion, drones and battle drums, as it melds beauty with chaos in the most majestic of spine-chilling style.  

After a decade of silence, Godspeed returns to a musical genre that's nearly buried itself in inane snobbish silliness and shows them all how it's properly done.

5 gamelan ensembles out of 5

Songs Of Note: Mladic; The Helicoptors' Sing

GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR / F# A# ∞ [1997]

Canadian post-rock ensemble Godspeed You! Black Emperor's first full-length album, F# A# ∞ is a post-apocalyptic aural painting of rage, despair and fear.
Broken up into 3 movements, Godspeed makes incredible use of haunting sound effects inserted between drawn out instrumentals that emotionally unfold into a surreal mixture of emptiness and grandiosity. Using the standard guitars, bass and drums, they cleverly throw in strings, horns, xylophones and glockenspiels to create a more organic sound that is that much more disturbing.
It's a difficult album to endure in one sitting but is certainly one of the most rewarding if you aren't turned off by being nearly suffocated with such beautiful desolation. Yet another desert island disc to add to my list.

5 Streets I nearly died on out of 5

Songs Of Note: The Dead Flag Blues [excerpt]; East Hastings [excerpt]