"Rant-a-ta-tat": Godspeed you Black Emperor! - F#A#∞

One time when I played this record, I went to my balcony to have a cigarette. It was a rather dead Sunday morning in my hometown. Most of them are. Even when I'm living in the centre of the city, it's mostly silent on Sundays. Eventually you hear some traffic or birds chirping. At least when it's Bird season. So, anyway, while I was sitting there, "enjoying" my morning routine, I was wondering if I can still hear the record playing from inside or if it's just the ambiance sound of  my city. I couldn't make it out. I'm struggling to strech out this story to make it any more epic, but the end of the story is, that I went in the flat again, after finishing the cigarette, and eventually recognized that I paused the record. The noise must've been the traffic or anything else out there...

So, what does that say about GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR's debut album? Oh no, it wasn't their debut album, even if any- and everybody thinks it actually is. They had an unknown full length way before. It was called "All Lights fucked on the Hairy Amp drooling" and came out in 1994. This record, their debut, not "F#A#∞" had twenty seven tracks!! Let that sink in. Anyway, what's wrong with this band giving their records such crude names? Talking about, wearing his intellectuality on the sleeve! That comes from someone who's running a shitty blog that goes by the name of "this borderline fuckup is drooling nonetheless". Honestly, I can't remember the current name of the blog myself, having changed bits of it for numerous times. Talking about "current" and "numerous times". Where does this band place the exclamation mark in their name today? Is it GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR!? Or GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR? Or GODSPEED! YOU BLACK EMPEROR? Or even GODSPEED YOU BLACK! EMPEROR? Hell, they could get all freaky calling themselves !GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR!. Or let them go all aggressive with GODSPEED! YOU! BLACK! EMPEROR!.

To this very day I don't know nothing about the meaning of the record's name but what I do know is, that I hate the name. That's probably cause I hate record names that I can't type on my laptop without using copy & paste from another site. On top of that, I hate record names that I'm unable to pronounce, at least without knots in my tongue. It's not that I have a friend with whom I'd like to talk about the record anyway, but... anyway!

The music itself is, well, what is it? It's classified as "Post-Rock" most of the time and regarded as one of the holy grails of the genre by most enthusiasts. As far as I remember, this album (won't copy its name again, nah!) was my very first dive into Post-Rock, buying it sometime in the early 2000s. Maybe that's the reason for my continuing, difficult relationship with the genre. About the same time, I got into Screamo-bands using Post-Rock-elements, mainly FUNERAL DINER & ENVY and I digged them very much... and a bit later I discovered SLINT's "Spiderland" as well as TALK TALK'S "Laughing Stock", two records I definitely declare landmarks for Post-Rock. Then again, it's hard for me to generally phantasize about the genre, never getting too much into it...

It's not that I loathe everything about GODSPEED's album, the middle-track (it's three tracks total on the CD-version) "East Hastings" actually has a great climax. But what happens aferwards is forgettable and the way to the climax is long and tiring. And that also counts for the whole record. While the dark and imaginative mood is solid, it's not enough for a 60-minute-album and on top of that I don't feel like it's something special. Sure, you gotta rate it with its release date in mind. The genre definitely wasn't as developed in 1997/98 as it is nowadays, though there were Post-Rock-records before that did a better job in my humble opinion. 

This album is mostly boring and overrated as fuck. I'll never understand why it's celebrated as one of the best records of the 90s.