What do you think of Godspeed You! Black Emperor?

[beerwolf]

Yes my fellow friends here on watmm (surprisingly nowadays the place I seek sanctuary from an insane world)

Please discuss this band and their music. I can never decide if they produce works of genius or works of utter boring drivel. I read Rate Your Music and come to the conclusion there are 3 camps of opinion. The first is the listeners who just hate them and as previously mentioned just create utter boring drivel, the second the ones who you can genuinely tell love their music and the third who are definitely sucking hipster bandwagon cock and think they are great but you know have only listened to the album once, and only bought it because they heard about it via the I Suck Hipster Bandwagon Cock Grapevine.

Once again I have just played Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven and a few days ago played F#A#~

And 'think' I fall in Camp One.

Please discuss!!

Edited April 24, 2020 by beer badger

[Lada Laika]

A couple of my friends were listening to Skinny Fists in high school. I wasn't into it until I saw them live a few years later. Blew me away. 

 

[manmower]

They're alright.

[beerwolf]

Just now, Lada Laika said:

A couple of my friends were listening to Skinny Fists in high school. I wasn't into it until I saw them live a few years later. Blew me away. 

 

That's the exact kind of story I was looking for 

[Zephyr_Nova]

I'm in the second camp.  They developed a style completely of their own, which can be at once heart-rendingly melancholic and joyfully uplifting.  They definitely retread the whisper-to-a-storm formula over and over... but that's what they do so amazingly well, and it's not like they're releasing an album every other year.  

[Zephyr_Nova]

7 minutes ago, Lada Laika said:

A couple of my friends were listening to Skinny Fists in high school. I wasn't into it until I saw them live a few years later. Blew me away. 

And yes, their live show is a tremendously cathartic experience.  You get swept up in the maelstrom of sound.

[milkface]

It was coney island ? they called Coney Island ?the playground of the world there was no place ? like it in the whole world like Coney Island ?when I was a youngster no place in the world like it it was so fabulous now it's shrunk down to almost nothing you see and uh I still remember in my mind how things used to be and uh you know I feel very bad but people from all over the world came here from all over the world it was the playground they called it the playground of the world over here anyways you see I uh you know I even got when I was very small I even got lost at Coney Island ? but they found me on the on the beach ???and we used to sleep on the beach here sleep overnight they don't do that anymore they don't sleep anymore on the beach ???

[IDEM]

Kay.

I liked them in the nineties and early naughts, listened to a lot of Tortoise, Mogwai, GY!BE and the like back then and thought it was the shit. They're still good and I can still get into it, I just never put them on anymore. Boring drivel? No.

Edit: I always wanted that vinyl version of that album that came with the flattened dollar (was it a dollar ?) which was supposedly run over by a train or whatever, cause I found that really cool and a nice gimmick at the time; I think an acquaitance of mine even sold his copy, but I slept on it, and nowadays it's probably unobtainium.

Edited April 24, 2020 by IDEM

[zero]

They are one of those bands that on paper I should be into since I'm a fan of a lot of post-rock, but the stuff that I've heard has never been able to click with me. I never could get into Skinny Fists, even though on numerous occasions I had people tell me I needed to check it out. I think the last album of theirs I listened to was Allelujah, and I thought it was OK but nothing special. 

 

[Candiru]

I think their songs have a ton of buildup with short bursts of pure awesome, kind of like Swans. Hipsters will hate bands far less guilty of this for the same reason, but will cum tiramisu for GY!BE and Swans every thyme

[Richie Sombrero]

Pretty boring music. Post-rock I mean. Not just them. 

[milkface]

21 minutes ago, Richie Sombrero said:

Pretty boring music. Post-rock I mean. Not just them. 

Must... listen... to........ 30000bpm gabber.... my attention span cannot hold on for longer than 30 seconds....

[Candiru]

Tortoise is considered post rock, and they're one of my favorite bands. I'm not sure it's the best label for them, since they have a totally different take on it and have very different musical leanings than post-anything bands. They're like accomplished jazz musicians making some kind of posh modern kraut-rock. TNT and Standards are my favorite albums by them but they have brilliant tracks scattered throughout the discog

GY!BE is like the polar opposite, but they have some very memorable moments in those long ass songs. Good soundtrack stuff. 

[BCM]

I don't think a God! (see what I did there) damn thing about them and have never listened to any of it.

[chim]

Postrock is kinda dated in a bad way and it's difficult to listen to without imagining all the self-absorbed, angsty humanities undergrads who must have gobbled it up over the decades. I like their schtick but I don't devote a ton of time to them. The quiet and brooding passages of Yanqui are my favorite. There's a good sense of space in that album, and all the lofi equipment buzz and feet shuffling give it a natural, live feel. Everything's too clean nowadays. I feel like Yndi Halda grew up and refined their sound better than GY!BE. Postrock elements seem to work better in other genres, where there's less room to jerk off. 

[tec]

I love them, but have found quite often the mood you bring to the music is reflected back at you.

[custom knob]

They’re great live. I think yanqui uxo and allelujah! Don’t bend etc are the highlights. The two most recent albums sound like shit to me.

cant stand Efrims singing on his side projects either

[Leon Sumbitches]

I very seldom if ever listen to them on record but I saw them live in Dublin a few years ago and it was unreal, one of my top gigs for sure. Those gradual buildups + volume + gonad-rattling bass make for a very intense experience. At its peak it almost felt like some sort of Lovecraftian presence was about to manifest into the room from beyond, although that's probably just me being wanky, lol.

Definitely see them live if you get a chance, a lot of thought had clearly gone into the visuals too.

 

 

 

[J3FF3R00]

On 4/24/2020 at 12:20 PM, IDEM said:

Kay.

I liked them in the nineties and early naughts, listened to a lot of Tortoise, Mogwai, GY!BE and the like back then and thought it was the shit. They're still good and I can still get into it, I just never put them on anymore. Boring drivel? No.

Edit: I always wanted that vinyl version of that album that came with the flattened dollar (was it a dollar ?) which was supposedly run over by a train or whatever, cause I found that really cool and a nice gimmick at the time; I think an acquaitance of mine even sold his copy, but I slept on it, and nowadays it's probably unobtainium.

*edit*

ugh. I seriously have no idea wtf just happened. See my post below

Edited April 26, 2020 by J3FF3R00

[J3FF3R00]

This sounds like you pulled the words out of my head. I was huge into Tortoise and Mogwai and my friend played me F#A#♾ at night in a car on a long drive and it was mind blowing (over the years I’ve probably had 50 chances to pick up an OG version of that LP with the train photo on the cover but never did and kick myself now). Those 3 bands were basically my 1997 soundtrack besides Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Atari Teenage Riot and all of the jungle and gabber I was chugging down. Back then, there really wasn’t anything like them. I never saw them live, unfortunately. I’ve only heard great things. I never really got into the later stuff but those first couple LPs and that first Silver Mount Zion LP were bangers, fer sher. 

Edited April 26, 2020 by J3FF3R00

[aencre]

I open up my wallet, and it’s full of blood.

Edited April 26, 2020 by aencre
(Exhaust and 1-Speed Bike are still on the regular rotation.)

[Lada Laika]

6 hours ago, custom knob said:

They’re great live. I think yanqui uxo and allelujah! Don’t bend etc are the highlights. The two most recent albums sound like shit to me.

cant stand Efrims singing on his side projects either

I didn't know anybody liked yanqui

[Goiter Sanchez]

They're amazing, recorded and esp live! My issue is that the context in which to play and enjoy their work rarely arises for me, not really something you can just put in the background.

[Limo]

They do their schtick well, but because they keep repeating it, it becomes tacky.

[Lada Laika]

43 minutes ago, rhmilo said:

They do their schtick well, but because they keep repeating it, it becomes tacky.

Like Autechre?