Product Description

From the bombs dropping on the cover to the slow buildups towards destruction and post-rock beauty in the compositions,this is Godspeed You Black Emperor at its most stripped-down, straightforward, and unsparing. Indie-rock icon Steve Albini produced YANQUI U.X.O., and his trademark extreme dynamics suit this shadowy Canadian collective well, weighing downon the roots of their whisper-to-frenzy style so they can freely branch off into new realms. The opener "09-15-00" departs into twangy, lounge-like territory not out of place for a Sergio Leone-cum-David Lynch nightmare (though it's apparently about Israel). "Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls" raises dark towers from shaky foundations of shivery Phillip Glass-style arpeggios, while the lead-heavy drones in "Motherf***er = Redeemer" sink into pools of near-total abstraction.
Godspeed cultists are generally divided on this album, though few debate its unusually high--even for the band--apocalyptic gloom quotient. This is probably not an advisable first listen for anyone easily swayed by morose music, but for the brave listener ready to aurally journey to the horizon of man's tragic destiny, this crushing work of post-rock art should carry them long and far.

Track Listing

1. 09-15-00
2. Rockets Fall On Rocket Falls
3. Motherfucker=Redeemer

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23580 in Music
• Released on: 2002-11-04
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Montreal-based anarchist collective Godspeed You Black Emperor are responsible for making some of the most awe-inspiring symphonic music of the last decade--but on their fourth record, Yanqui U.X.O, it sounds as if the wind in their sails has dropped from a gale to a breeze. By no means has their resolve faltered: Godspeed are still dedicated to autonomy from a music industry they view as corrupt--witness the sleeve of Yanqui U.X.O, which features a pen-scrawled chart that financially links major record labels to arms manufacturers and the American military itself. But the music here--recorded, for the first time, with Chicago-based producer Steve Albini--lacks the inspiring climaxes and dramatic manifestos that characterised the band's earlier works. The second movement of "09-15-00" displays a serene, windswept beauty. But all too often, individual instruments--celestial guitar roar, keening violin, martial drum signatures--aren't given enough space to breathe, gelling into one characterless drone. And with no atmospheric field recordings to section up its five plodding orchestral passages, Yanqui U.X.O begins to feel like an awfully long 75 minutes. Only the closing "Motherfucker = Redeemer" finds the band hitting their stride, but by then, you're mute with surprise that Godspeed have turned out an album that's anything other than totally excellent. --Louis Pattison

Customer Reviews

It ain't heavy, it's....
There's no doubt these guys can make moving music that has real depth and feeling that will take months if not years to explore properly.... just beware. I want to add another perspective to the reviews your reading

I stumbled across these guys through Listmania recommendations and probably, like you reading this now, thought this may just be your nirvana. In some ways it may well be, but expectation can disappoint.

Post-rock sure is a broad cloak worn by many, so what you must know is that, in my opinion, one thing this is not is heavy. Many reviews talk about the quiet then loud approach, the light then dark, the distorted guitars, the apocolyptic climaxes etc etc. In fact these guys seem over and over to be referred to as the gods in this field. I don't buy this.

Here GYBE are a kind-of rock version of Moby on some sort of hallucinergenic bender, and don't take this as a slur. They're nothing like as heavy as even ISIS. They're genuinely experimental, no instrument or arrangement off bounds, and like Moby they can make simple hooks last a lifetime. But when they build to climax they do not do so in the raw, overpowering, forceful way that bands like say, Cult of Luna, do. They do so in a way that suggests they think a little screaming, turn up distortion and hit the cymbols a little harder will do it. In my view this doesn't work. All they really achieve in these moments is a high pitched din that annoys you like the screaming kid behind you on the airplane who keeps kicking your seat.

Look, I'm not saying this is bad... It's a fine CD but you need to go in with open mind and not expect these guys to be something they're not, most probably based on the reviews of people who have come to this genre through the ambient route rather than the metal one.... World's collide eh? Now there's a heavy band.

I love this album for the strings and the quiet stuff.... that's where they're at their best. You guys looking for light moving through to proper HEAVY experimental stuff need Cult of Luna, Pelican, Switchblade...

Rockets Fall on Nay-Sayers!
RI am an admirer of all Godspeed's albums but I left purchasing `Yanqui UXO' until last, not through any desire for chronology but simply because I had perceived from reviews that this was the band's weakest effort. Just goes to show how wrong you can be.
`Yanqui UXO' shows the band to be in blistering form. This is by far their tightest and most cohesive effort yet. Gone are the spoken word samples that permeate all of their other recordings. These are a matter of taste, but in my opinion they detracted from the quality and focus of some of the material on `Lift Your Skinny Fists..', for example.

Guitars are more to the fore here, distorted to a greater extent than previously (perhaps showing the influence of Albini at the desk) but I disagree that other instruments do not have room to breathe. Rather, this is the first album where Godspeed genuinely sound like a band rather than a collection of musicians, albeit very talented, chipping in with their own ideas.

The music is driven with an exhilarating rush, exemplified superbly on the album's heart `Rocket Falls..' This 20-minute track is virtually an album in itself as it progresses through so many stages; from urgently plucked guitars, atmospheric strings, blasts of distorted guitar and back again, separated by one wonderfully swooping cinematic flourish. Great stuff.

A criticism would have to be that at 74 minutes the record is a little overlong, but don't let the nay-sayers put you off. If you love powerful and urgent rock music buy this CD. Will there be another Godspeed album? Perhaps not as the side projects proliferate, but if not this is a fine way to bow out. Excellent.

Hmmm... it's different, I'll give it that
Okay, I won't bore you by saying things like "This album is definitely different" (i've done enough of that in the review title), because that's what's been said in pretty much every review here. So what I'm going to do is try and explain why it's different. Maybe then you'll get an idea of what the music's like (Of course, this is kind of dependant on you being familiar with Godspeed's earlier work).

First, and most noticable, the voice samples are competely gone. This means that any "message" being put into the music has to be put across entirely by the music. Not a major loss, but I always enjoyed listening to the voices and contemplating any messages that they might put across.

Second, there's a lot more distortion on the instruments - especially the guitars. This can get annoying at times.

Third, the quiet bits are quieter and the louder bits are louder. Potentially a good thing, if you enjoy the crescendos more than the build ups. However, when it does get loud it tends to just become noise - as on 09-15-00.

Fourth, as has already been mentioned in the amazon review, instruments are not given enough emphasis - it becomes hard to distinguish between the instruments. The result of this is that even during the quieter moments it seems like a cacophony of noise.

Fifth, and this is one of the biggest downers about this album, the 'compositions' are no longer split into differnt 'acts'. On the two previous LP's each track was like a composition, consisting of about four separate parts. This meant that there was huge variation between different parts of the song. On Yanqui UXO this is not the case, although 09-15-00 is split up into parts 1 and 2. Even motherfucker=redeemer, the album's highlight, can get repetitive at times.

Sixth, the guitar is used far more predominantly than any other instrument, which i suppose has always been the case. But to me it's kind of a dissapointment, as is suggests that there has been no real progression in the ambition of the music (in fact, there has been something of a regression in that respect).

So, not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination, just not good enough.