'Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress' Godspeed You! Black Emperor

"This relatively curt 40-minute set... ranks among their most immediate. Fist-pumps accompany the sawing crescendo on “Piss Crowns Are Trebled.” The journey back from the abyss on “Peasantry or ‘Light! Inside of Light!” begins halfway through, when major chords come chorusing in like a cavalry of the just. Obsessive God’s Pee watchers may recognize these four tracks from the 45-minute live suite known as "Behemoth" – not a bad summation of this album’s threat and grandeur." – The Guardian

"Change is not Godspeed’s way, but the other side of that coin is that, despite many imitators, there’s also nothing else out there that sounds quite like them. The shifts on this record involve pivots more than actual movement: At points, guitars are unusually prominent and the music feels a bit heavier. It’s also their shortest album. But beyond a few such tweaks, the album is Godspeed to its core, moving from thin drones to Wagnerian pomp and circumstance and back again over long, patient stretches." – Pitchfork

"Things sound bigger and bolder and more emotionally loaded, for whatever reason, when Godspeed’s music is playing. A lonely pigeon flying past your window can look like an ominous harbinger of doom, or like a symbol for collective hope, depending on what part of the album you’re at. With 'Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress', they’ve cut out some of the more atmospheric elements of their sound — the scratchy foundsound samples, the faraway ambient crackles. But they haven’t lost any of the primal force that makes them some thing more than a band. If it catches you at the right moment, this is music that can make you glad to be alive." – Stereogum

"Though they've never ventured into formulaic safety, GY!BE's narrowed focus gives them a formidable strength. Sure, this band's songs are still the sprawling, epic-scale planetary collisions we've come to expect, and the crescendos are as mighty as any you might hear on one of the group's four full-lengths prior. What's changed is the translation of that narrative to the listener. Exchanging their volatile tendencies for restraint and focus, Godspeed You! Black Emperor have created another incredible work and one that finds them again evading the confines of formula — even if it happens to be their own." – SPIN

"Instead of inevitably cresting from raucous despair to melodic rejoicing, surfing on those easy eddies of crescendo, Asunder strikes at an uneasier strain of melancholy. It’s empowering and depressing, dispiriting and buoying. It elevates and dampens all at once. It’s a record of resistance: bucking both optimism and its opposite, reinvigorating the bromidic post-rock blahs" – Globe and Mail

"It perfectly marries the group's new heavier approach with their vintage brand of emotional crescendos heading ever skyward, and of course ultimately collapsing into a fading serene coda. It's familiar territory to be sure, but they've never sounded more like they're playing for their very lives." – The Quietus