The majestic confines of the Albert Hall play host to the enigmatic clandestine outfit Godspeed You! Black Emperor, on this hot spring evening. As the light fades through the elegant stained glass windows solo member drone act Total Life provide something of an endurance test. Devoting nearly an hour to all of three notes may be acceptable when the visual aspect of someone like Sunn0))) is in place, but when it is merely a chap crouched behind a guitar case, fiddling with a laptop and synth then the idea of watching paint dry becomes quiet an attractive alternative to this set of self-indulgent navel-gazing drudgery.
Enter Canada’s premier post rock export. Greeted in a suitably reverential fashion with polite applause lapsing into hushed anticipation the crowd seem grateful just to experience their heroes in such an opulent setting. Over the nine song set which follows Godspeed You! Black Emperor, are simply breath taking. Certainly the omission of numbers like ‘East Hastings’ may be an issue to some, but from the moment violinist Sophie Trudeau leads her colleagues into opener ‘Hope Drone’ the hall is lost in a reverie of wonder. Delivered against a backdrop of eerie projections, slogans such as ‘Out Of Order’ and ‘Fuck America’ appear, their antiauthoritarian rhetoric is absorbed in a far more accessible fashion than having it screaming right at you.
New opus ‘Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress’ is aired in its entirety veering from majesty to dissonant often savage territory. It is a brutal performance art piece where each composition is given its time in the spotlight. Trudeau and company encircled with their back to the audience, only acknowledge their adoring public following the conclusion of the set but to have babbled on between tracks would have spoiled the mood and detracted from the experience.
Two new compositions are aired tonight suggest that, whatever the future holds for this trailblazing octet it will be as mysterious and compelling as ever. Rightfully occupying their very own plain of existence, GYBE are already carving a new chapter in a legacy as compelling as it is unconventional.
ROSS BAKER