Who better to profoundly convey the disquieting turmoil of our recent times than Montreal post-rock legends Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The collective played the second of two nights at Montreal’s venerable MTELUS, in support of their eighth release, the sobering and instantly dated, No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead. A direct reference to the death toll in Palestine at that date, the title is exemplary of Godspeed You!

It should go without saying at this point that 2024 has been a wild year for music. We’ve seen artists like Chappell Roan go from sleeper hitmaker to megastar almost overnight. We’ve seen albums like BRAT absolutely dominate pop culture to the point where its aesthetic has been used in American political campaigns (to varying levels of success).

Weekday shows have always irked me a little; standing in a crowd at 9 pm, with that lingering dread of class the next morning sitting idly in the back of my mind. It takes a special kind of music to cut through that sadness, and thankfully L’Escogriffe Bar had exactly that this past Tuesday night. 

Tinashe’s world tour show at MTELUS did not live up to the level of freak I expected. The R&B legend, who’s been in the game for over a decade, gained more popularity with her album Quantum Baby riding the wave of Brat Summer. The show was well done and long, the dancers and Tinashe were very talented, but there was a lack of aesthetic continuance. Song transitions felt disjointed, as if there was a slew of creative directors who didn’t talk to each other.