Article by Umberto Scaramozzino
After three years the Godspeed you! Black Emperorfresh from publication of the new album “No Title as of 13 Febreny 2024 28,340 Dead“. There are three Italian dates, the first of which is a Turincities that often and willingly hosts the Canadian band and this time does it in the large fuchy hall of the Ogrready to welcome almost two thousand people.
The first time of the Gy! Be in the Piedmontese capital was in 2015, now a decade ago. Ten years with a specific weight difficult to measure, because in the meantime the world has reinvented and messed up so many times that they make a budget impossible, to be said to what extent we are. On that occasion, upon exiting the concert at the Concordia Theater of Venaria, just outside Turin, the dramatic news of the tragic attack at the Bataclan of Paris was learned of the dramatic news. From there, between fears, lockdown, increases, crisis and marching, reasons to jump or voluntarily jumping the concerts we have had far too many. Yet you are still all here, even more than the other time, in front of a crowded stage, ready to be overwhelmed by sound wall of the Canadian combo.
The most absurd thing? That this genre – that for convenience we could define post-rockaware of the great limit that we are imposing – born to be out of time and out of any market logic, continues to resist undaunted and offered as an exception to almost every rule. In this scenario the music of the Godspeed stands prodigious, with the evident need for live listening to make the experience complete.
Now it is more difficult than ever to resist the temptation to resort to one of the most abused phrases when it comes to describing the concerts – make a drink game looking for the expression “collective rite“Within the” Live Report “section of any musical webzine and book for a liver transplant – but perhaps it is really one of the few occasions when it would be legitimate to do so. Without resorting to words, the Gy! Be manage to convey sensations that are transmitted to the head, from heart to heart, dilating every pore of the square kilometers of epidermis enclosed within the walls of the Ogr. The ritual was born from a religious contemplative silence, moves to the tribal movements to the rhythm of powerful growth growth, up to the explosive ovations that act as an interlude between one suite and another.
The projections They are certainly among the most significant that you can see today in a concert, both for the visual result and for the construction technique. Behind all this there is the fundamental contribution of Karl Lemieuxdirector who became a key figure in defining the group's visual identity. His work is what concretizes the sublime linked between music and images, thanks to the projection of 18mm films It bears expressionist short films, often turned along the deserted streets of Canada in search of gloomy, abstract, introspective and disorienting atmospheres. The perfect representation of the long instrumental journeys that his colleagues articulate on stage, between Noise, psychedelic rock, shoegaze and some melodic intuitions to be left open -mouthed.
The atmosphere is tetra, the sound of sound is abrasive. The columns of the OGRs seem to have to strain a little more than usual to keep everything standing. The invisible hand of the musicians tries to touch, one by one, all the consciences of those present, to crown an intent well represented by the new album that surely at the end of 2025 will boast the most title you can of the year: “No title as of 13 Febreny 2024 28,340 Dead”. Explicit reference to the dramatic balance of the unnamed civil victims to Gaza, which at the time of the records of the disc were precisely 28,340, but which today amount to more than double. There are no words, but the message of music is as clear as it is overwhelming and this seems to be precisely the fil rouge of every live experience with Godspeed you! Black Emperor: something difficult, if not impossible to tell in words, but extremely clear to those who have had the pleasure and honor of sharing it.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
