Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress is the fifth studio album by Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, released on 31 March 2015 by Constellation Records. The album was recorded with Electrical Audio engineer Greg Norman in North Carolina and Montreal,[1][12] and was the first to feature completely new material since the band's reformation in 2010.[13] It is also, with the exception of the vinyl version of F♯ A♯ ∞ (ignoring the locked groove), the group's shortest album to date, timing in at just forty minutes.
The album was announced on 24 February 2015; the group also shared an excerpt of "Peasantry or 'Light! Inside of Light!'" on SoundCloud.[14] On 24 March 2015, Constellation streamed the album on their SoundCloud.
Critical reception
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from music critics, the album has received an average score of 84, indicating "universal acclaim".[2]
Pitchfork rated the album 7.6 out of a possible 10 and Mark Richardson described the album as a "different kind of transaction" and that while listening to the album "You have to let your guard down" as that Godspeed "transforms feelings into compelling records. They're still on track."[15] Writing for Exclaim!, Nilan Perera called the record "a beautiful, concise blast that conveys this band's musical essence".[6]
Track listing
The album's four tracks are based on "Behemoth", played live numerous times since 2012 and previously recorded onstage for the concert series We Have Signal.[16]
