And All That’s Left Is Ashes

Godspeed You! Black Emperor “Peasantry Or ‘Light! Inside Of Light!'”

Explosions in the Sky make music for the movie of your life where you’re a hero and you win in the end, but Godspeed You! Black Emperor make music for the film where you lose, possibly on a grand cosmic scale. Even the moments that feel triumphant in Godspeed songs – and there’s definitely a few of those in “Peasantry…” – feel inherently pessimistic, and feel more like finding the strength to fight back against inevitable failure rather than actually overcoming it. The feeling of relentless impending doom in their body of work can be a little overbearing and it’s certainly not something you’d want to play all the time, but I think when they really hit their mark, the hopelessness in their music is actually sort of beautiful. It’s not a hopelessness that comes out of self-pity, but rather a sense of humility and peace in accepting that the world is unfair and has no pity on us. It’s giving in to something greater than yourself, or anything you understand.

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