Godspeed You! Black Emperor are an ensemble who got their start in 1994 and hail from Montreal. You cannot so much call them a band as they are more of a group of people. Roughly three to four years of work went into this album and members came and went periodically. They have been known to have as many as twenty members at a time. Godspeed You! play instrumental post-rock featuring traditional guitar, drums and bass. What differentiates these guys from many other post-rock bands is their use of instrumentation. While they do build songs to suit a specific mood or feeling, they can completely throw you off and turn things around incorporating xylophone, violins and even bagpipes into the mix. Now this may sound like the weirdest combination of sounds and instruments you've ever heard of but I can assure you it all fits and flows smoothly. Each of the three tracks on their debut album (which clock in between 16 and 30 minutes each) feature a specific mood the group wishes you to subscribe to. Due to the length of the tracks, the album takes somewhat of a more classical approach and in the liner notes breaks each song up into movements. F# A# ∞ (pronounced F-sharp, A-sharp, Infinity) is one of those albums that simply draws you in right from the get-go. Album opener "Dead Flag Blues" opens with some low-end synth and features a voice which describes a vision of an apocalypse. This is followed by the paranoia of "East Hastings" and finally the feeling of hope and resolve via "Providence". The trick to enjoying Godspeed You! though, is to be in the right mood and state of mind in order to listen to it. It is the type of album that may collect dust on your shelf but will eventually find its way back to your stereo and holds up upon repeat listenings.
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