Luciferian Towers

Good album if you like these guys as I have for 20 years or so. Their performance 2 years ago in a church in Los Angeles was one of the the top 5 concerts I've been to, and I've been to a quite a few in the last 40 years. And check out this Russian band Mooncake on YouTube.

If you already love this band like I do, you will enjoy this album. If you have not listened to them before, start with earlier material.

The great and powerful towers, this is drone\, not drone magic.

Another powerful release from this Canadian collective.

Like many, I was introduced to GYBE through the film, "28 days later," when I was stunned by the violent beauty of the music accompanying the scene where the main character confronts a post-apocalyptic London. That track, "East Hastings," appears on F# A# Infinity, a masterpiece of progressive/experimental rock. The latest release by GYBE, "Luciferian Towers", is in my opinion their best album since F# A# Infinity. It is more melody-driven than some of the intervening albums, although it retains the driving intensity and howling synthesizers and guitars that are the trademark of the group.The album begins with "Undoing a Luciferian Towers," a dark and edgy piece that starts as a relatively quiet dirge accompanied by soft bagpipes. The track builds slowly through interesting and ominous key changes and chord progressions. The end of the piece is a chorus of frenzied guitars and keyboards that could indeed speak of hell. The first time I listened to the album I wasn't at all sure I liked this track--it is a nerve-wracking piece full of foreboding and doom--but after repeated listenings I now count it as one of my favorites.The best part of the album, however, is the three part "Anthem for No State," especially the last few minutes (starting around the 6:20 mark of Part III), which is simply sublime and ends the album on a somewhat hopeful note, or--more accurately--what counts as a hopeful note for the music of Godspeed You! Black Emperor.F# A# Infinity is still the superior album, in my opinion, but that is not meant to disparage "Luciferian Towers" in any way. This is a strong, consistent album filled with tracks of complexity, energy, and beauty. If you are new to GYBE, I suggest giving the album a listen on YouTube before buying it; this brand of music is not everybody's cup of tea. If you end up liking and buying this album, by all means go back and pick up F# A# Infinity. You'll be glad you did.One last important recommendation: This, like all their albums, is not background music meant for casual listening. It cries instead for a darkened room. top-shelf headphones, and for those inclined, perhaps a mood-altering substance of your choice.

great album

Another strong release from Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

The best thing about Godspeed's new album is that it doesn't rely on most of their usual crutches, including the new ones that they developed after reforming. Thus, there are no droning ambient interludes, like on Allelujah or Asunder, Sweet -- the ambience is now part of the music, rather than separated from it. There are (almost) no screeching metal guitars, either.Instead, we get some of the most delicate music Godspeed has ever written. The closest reference point among the earlier work is the calmer-sounding passages on F#A# (still my favourite Godspeed album). Think of the forlorn, echoing guitar figures in between the big crescendos, the ones that used to draw comparisons to Ennio Morricone -- that's what a lot of this album sounds like. The best parts are the most unassuming ones: the opening track and "Fam/Famine" (the two shortest pieces) and the first two parts of "Anthem For No State," which bring back those "spaghetti Western" guitars from the second half of "The Dead Flag Blues." (They were sorely missed!)At the same time, this still hews closer to the more "modest," scaled-back Godspeed that emerged after the long hiatus. The album is just 44 minutes long (still shorter than Allelujah), again with four tracks, although this time they couldn't resist splitting two of them into three parts each. Considering the overall less aggressive sound here, this is important since too much of it could have easily felt boring (which, in my opinion, is an issue with Lift Your Skinny Fists).Despite the strident title of the album and several individual songs (one of them is charmingly called "Bosses Hang"), the repeated references to uprising and violence are evoked only indirectly, from the viewpoint of a distanced observer rather than a participant. The first song, "Undoing A Luciferian Tower," calls to mind some kind of analogy with the storming of the Bastille. The beginning swells with buzzing, choppy synths, which could sound spaced-out and relaxing in a different context (for example, in "Propeller" on Mountains' 2013 album  Centralia ), but here are overlaid with piercing, worried brass notes, which suggest mounting unrest. Around 3:20, the synth background turns dark; by 4:15 the brass comes back and blares discordantly; but the backbeat maintains its calm, measured tone, and by 6:15 the conflict has resolved into a festive procession.Part 3 of the closing movement, "Anthem For No State," is the only hint of the full-on squalling rage from the previous two albums. Like "Piss Crowns Are Trebled," it takes its time building up layers of screeching feedback before the main hook comes in around 1:40, a doomy post-punk bassline similar to the one that kicked off the fast part of "Mladic." Backed by triumphant brass, the bass marches through three minutes until, around 4:30, we get the album's one metal moment, with Menuck's insistent drone-guitar hammering away at the listener's eardrums. But at 6:20, after just under two minutes of this, the tone suddenly steps up into blissful trumpets and lilting synths that again give some kind of closure and resolution to the anger.I thought "Bosses Hang" was probably the weakest part of the album, since the second and third parts try to build up volume around a single phrase that is simplistically repeated for a bit too long. But otherwise this is some of the most detailed music of Godspeed's career. Even "Famine," the shortest of the four pieces, shows nuanced development, slowly unfolding interplay between multiple stringed instruments, culminating in a more languid reprise of the theme from the opening track. On the previous two albums, they would have just put six minutes of feedback or something.I will probably always see F#A# as the most perfect expression of Godspeed's aesthetic, but I'm ready to say that their post-hiatus work is much stronger and more consistent than the early-2000s albums that made them so revered in indie circles (and then derided, but that's how indie trends are). The sloganeering is still there, but for any band the music should come first; while Allelujah showed that they still have no trouble conjuring up intense, exhausting calamity, the calmer, gentler vision shown on Towers finally hints at something more than just repetitions of anger and loss.

Since returning from their 10 year hiatus, GY!BE's last two albums have been brilliant in places but ultimately a little bit disappointing in comparison to what went before.Lucifarian Towers sees less of the drone/white noise laiden tracks and a bigger emphasis on grabbing a melody and exploring the limits of where they can take it.Whilst maybe not hitting quite the same heights that F#A# and Lift Yr Skinny Fists reach in places, it is probably their most consistent album and certainly their best since Skinny Fists.

Love the way this album is put together two songs in three parts each a part of each other it feels like Godspeed are concentrating more on the music than the anarchy in this album don’t get me wrong the anarchy and the messages in the music is a huge part of Godspeed that make them amazing and insightful. Take you on a journey musically from start to finish mixing the messages with the music blended wonderfully . I can’t stop listening to bosses hang you can really feel how they have progressed there talent I agree since raise your skinny fists musically this is a fantastic album. Just don’t expect the samples about how corrupt the government is in there previous work.

Another great album

Superb renditions as always - totally atmospheric soundscapes that capture light and dark in equal depth. GSYBE never fail to deliver the goods

Musicalmente, nulla da dire. Disco di grande impatto che prosegue il discorso cominciato con "don't bend Ascend, allelujah" e proseguito con "asunder" che forse è il migliore di questo trittico di questo nuovo corso dei GY!BE. Allora, perché tre stelle?Alla epicità e al pathos delle composizioni purtroppo non corrisponde una produzione all'altezza: il suono risulta scavatissimo con una sezione ritmica seppellita nelle tonnellate di distorsioni e cacofonie tipiche della band canadese. Peccato, perché invece le riprese delle chitarre sono tra le migliori incise nella discografia del gruppo.