Godspeed You Black Emperor! — Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada EP

180g / Remastered for Vinyl / Includes lyric Sheet / 12" EP / Side A: 45 RPM Side B: 33 ⅓ RPM / Made in Canada / Reissue Pressed in 2017 / Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada may last only half an hour, but in that time it imparts an internal experience akin to that of watching a cast-of-thousands Hollywood epic. Godspeed You Black Emperor! are a Montreal-based nine-piece ensemble that uses massed strings, ringing electric guitars, and martial drums to evoke endless vistas and stir strong emotions. "Moya" opens with a solemn drone overlaid with resonant violin overtones, then builds to a crashing, unapologetically melodramatic climax. The CD's second (and final) selection, "Blaise Bailey Finegan III," is more ambitious. Like a director who grabs his audience's tear ducts with both fists, the group inserts field recordings of a ranting paranoiac between sweeping spaghetti-Western passages that rise to exhilarating multiple crescendos, then fall away to ghostly, echoed violins. --Bill Meyer