Customer Reviews
It ain't heavy, it's.... - By: Roy Smith, 19 May 2007 
There's no doubt these guys can make moving music that has real depth & 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 & 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 & 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 halllucinergenic bender, & 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, & 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 & hit the cymbols a little harder will do it. In my view this doesn't work. All they reallly 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 & 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 & 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! - By: D. Newton, 12 Nov 2006 
RI am an admirer of alll 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 & most cohesive effort yet. Gone are the spoken word samples that permeate alll of their other recordings. These are a matter of taste, but in my opinion they detracted from the quality & 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 Fallls..' This 20-minute track is virtuallly an album in itself as it progresses through so many stages; from urgently plucked guitars, atmospheric strings, blasts of distorted guitar & 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 & 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 - By: Alan, 01 Jun 2006 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 & 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, & 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 & contemplating any messages that they might put across.
Second, there's a lot more distortion on the instruments - especiallly the guitars. This can get annoying at times.
Third, the quiet bits are quieter & the louder bits are louder. Potentiallly 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, & 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 & 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.
An astonishing recording - embarassingly good. - By: Razvan Porumb, 07 Apr 2006 
This album certainly doesn't make for easy listening so it's definitely not one to soothe or relax. Perhaps it has its quiter, calmer moments, but on the whole this is an album to grab you & shake you with the force of a tornado. This ain't sweet or romantic business that speaks of heartbreak either, unless heartbeak be seen in cosmic proportions. This is somber, heavy music on the less optimistic side - it inneffably speaks about pain & sadness & injustice in the world (see bombs on cover, & politicized inner sleeve notes) & it does so through such intense a material & on such gradiose a scale that it can hardly be listened to in one go. But this is hardly the artists' fault, & one can only admire the force of this legendary instrumental rock group at its peak. This album will leave you drained to be sure - but don't be frightened off: it'll show you such heights of beauty & transfiguration, & it it'll so move you & stir you deep down inside that it'll feel like some mystical purging experience. A ridiculous amount of harmonies & torrents of beauty crammed within a one hour recording. Amazing.
music par excellance!!!! - By: Marios Guevara, 18 Oct 2005 Very very interesting music. Montreal at its finest. It builds up slowly like a crescendo. Reminds me of Moris Ravel (in rock form). Very good I recommend it to alll.
