Luciferian Towers

AlbumSep 22 / 20178 songs, 43m 54s
Post-Rock
Popular Highly Rated

More than 20 years into their career, the silhouette of symphonic post-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor remains as unmistakable as ever: tentative wisps of sound that build to heights of almost agonizing glory. Following the thread of 2012’s relatively optimistic *Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!*, *Luciferian Towers* is a volcanic, inspiring album with hints of Near Eastern music (“Undoing a Luciferian Towers”), Irish wake ballads (“Bosses Hang, Pt. I”), and psychedelia beamed in from an imaginary Western (“Anthem for No State, Pt. III”)—a cross-cultural portrait of music as an expression of hope and resistance.

this, this long-playing record, a thing we made in the midst of communal mess, raising dogs and children. eyes up and filled with dreadful joy – we aimed for wrong notes that explode, a quiet muttering amplified heavenward. we recorded it all in a burning motorboat. (context as follows:) 1. UNDOING A LUCIFERIAN TOWERS – look at that fucking skyline! big lazy money writ in dull marble obelisks! imagine all those buildings much later on, hollowed out and stripped bare of wires and glass, listen- the wind is whistling through all 3,000 of its burning window-holes! 2. BOSSES HANG – labor, alienated from the wealth it creates, so that holy cow, most of us live precariously! kicking at it, but barely hanging on! also – the proud illuminations of our shortened lives! also – more of us than them! also – what we need now is shovels, wells, and barricades! 3. FAM / FAMINE – how they kill us = absentee landlord, burning high-rise. the loud panics of child-policemen and their exploding trigger-hands. with the dull edge of an arbitrary meritocracy. neglect, cancer maps, drone strike, famine. the forest is burning and soon they’ll hunt us like wolves. 4. ANTHEM FOR NO STATE – kanada, emptied of its minerals and dirty oil. emptied of its trees and water. a crippled thing, drowning in a puddle, covered in ants. the ocean doesn’t give a shit because it knows it’s dying too. finally and in conclusion; the “luciferian towers” L.P. was informed by the following grand demands: + an end to foreign invasions + an end to borders + the total dismantling of the prison-industrial complex + healthcare, housing, food and water acknowledged as an inalienable human right + the expert fuckers who broke this world never get to speak again much love to all the other lost and wondering ones, xoxoxox god’s pee / montréal / 4 juillet, 2017

594

7.3 / 10

The sound of Godspeed’s radical fury takes a sideline on their impeccably composed sixth album. It contains their most melodic and powerfully positive-sounding music to date.

B

Luciferian Towers is the perfect name for a Godspeed You! Black Emperor album, matched only, perhaps, by the title of its 2000 classic Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven. In a way, this new one—the band’s third since reuniting in 2011—feels like a bookend to Lift, in that it’s similarly powerful, but far…

5 / 10

Godspeed You! Black Emperor's apocalyptic vision remains as relevant and powerful as ever on Luciferian Towers.

9 / 10

Again and again, Godspeed You! Black Emperor conjure a rare sort of glorious joy to push back against a world so susceptible to corruption t...

6.5 / 10

When this record takes off, as it does on the third parts of "Bosses Hang" and later "Anthem For No State," it really takes off.

8 / 10

‘Luciferian Towers’, the third album since Godspeed You! Black Emperor reunited, won't wrong-foot anyone, but certainly is not Godspeed-by-numbers.

7 / 10

Publicity photo via.

8.0 / 10

Our review of 'Luciferian Towers' by Godspeed You! Black Emperor finds a band at the top of their game.

Album Reviews: Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Luciferian Towers

4.5 / 5

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Luciferian Towers review: A few thousand bosses swinging lazily in the town square.

A fine album of defiantly uncommercial psychedelia from the Canadian oddballs. CD New Music review by Guy Oddy

8 / 10