As of this moment, the official death toll in Gaza has reached the number of 42,010. But the actual number of deaths is vastly higher, due to the fact that the Gazan Health Ministry has a rigorous, unusually high standard of solely counting official deaths by bodies that have been positively identified in morgues and those reported dead by friends and family. It has become impossible to identify every single person that has been killed considering the state their remains are in, especially if this concerns entire families that have died in shelling. Oh, and those are only “conflict-related” deaths that are counted, so do not include deaths from starvation, disease or shock.
Still, even with this uniquely high standard – which is not applied for any other conflict worldwide – the number of deaths has been repeatedly questioned by mainstream media and even the president of the United States, even though investigations of previous death reports coming from the Gazan Health Ministry during conflicts by the U.N. showed only small discrepancies, proving an accurate track record.
This has to be repeated: no other conflict has a standard as high as the Gazan Health Ministry, and their numbers have had high accuracy in the past. Likewise, there’s few other conflicts where there will be an argument made that the official death toll would actually ignore combatants and list them as civilians – all while the latest released list of deceased individuals is made up of 18,4% women and 33% children and 4% elderly. If you leaf through the official report, pages are filled with children below the age of one year. Only after dozens upon dozens will you finally reach adults.
So how high is the actual track record? Considering the widespread destruction of Gazan infrastructure that has been documented by the BBC via aerial cameras, we can assume that it is significantly higher – the U.N. produced the figure of 70% of Gazan housing that is likely to be severely damaged. But that was earlier this year. There is a nonprofit organisation which tracks all available data that can be openly accessed, which actually researched social media posts from Gazans that posted on the deaths of loved ones. Comparing those to the list provided by the Gazan Health Ministry, they were unable to account for about 25% of names reported in those posts, with the other 75% appearing on the official death toll. Add to this that obviously not every death will be announced via social media. It is just an indicator.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor have released their new album as “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD”. There’s no comma or further explanation, because none is necessary. It’s possible the group chose the 13th February of this year as this was the date the recording of the album was finalised – maybe there’s another, more personal reason for it. It’s a rousing and often sad record, delving closer to the Pink Floyd sound the band chose shortly after the exit of mad hatter-like frontman Syd Barrett, documented in live shows and rarely released on official records (“Careful with that Axe Eugene” is a good example).
The results are often eerie. “Sun is a hole Sun is Vapors” opens with faint echoes of whispers, ghostly voices, before a lonesome riff cuts through the drone, funny enough vaguely reminiscent of the opening chords of “Wish You Were Here”. Where Godspeed often chose an apocalyptic, cinematic tone for their previous projects, there’s something muscular and resolute about the guitar tones chosen, unshakeable in confidence yet also deeply mournful. “Babys in a thundercloud” opens with the distant sound of sirens and explosions, then slowly develops, through jazz drumming and breathy guitar textures into a progressively more rousing composition of climbing notes. When they suddenly break down, the effect on the violin makes it almost sound like a mellotron, detached from its body, merely a memory of an instrument. The central melody finally returns in thundering guitar dialogue, which, aided by militaristic drumming, becomes defiant in its euphoric tone of added melodies.
The heaviest track follows: “Raindrops cast in lead” has a climactic finish that could well be the loudest and most punishing in Godspeed’s history, with each string member being allowed to take centre stage, creating a chorus of echoing, shrill metallic sounds, bordering on noise music and shoegaze.
Between this second half and the first (which contrasts droning ambience with a post-punk guitar riff that has a touch of Bernard Sumner in it), a spanish poem parts the song. Here are its final lines, translated into English: “Those who tried and were killed for trying / Those who died young, angry or old, and never saw the dawn / Innocents and children and the tiny bodies that laughed and will remain asleep forever / And never saw the beauty of the dawn”. The poem, in a way, represents the spirit of the record – “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD” is gifted with a uniquely poetic emotion that combines deep mourning with strength and willpower. Compare that to the aura of an album like F♯A♯∞, which is characterised by an apocalyptic sense of dread and hopelessness. This present tone is complex, and deeply intentional.
The only genuinely hopeless-seeming moment here comes in the short “Broken Spires at Dead Kapital”: with its thundering, funeral-march drums and vaguely Middle Eastern melodies, strange insect-like buzzing and humming, it conjures the imagery of dreadful horror scenarios. It introduces the violent “Pale Spectator takes Photographs”, which works with drones and staccato guitars before settling in a groovy prog rock jam, once again connecting vaguely with the spirit of early Pink Floyd or Italy’s Goblin. It’s almost tribal and religious in certain moments, such as when a strange ringing explodes into the song, or the violin takes over.
Finally, “Grey Rubble – Green Shoots” builds up to climactic noise rock, before dropping off into a slow, Sigur Rós-like piece that is the record’s most mournful tune. Filled with tenderness and grief, that final section has a fragile body that seems absent from the rest of “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD”. Whether it signifies a new beginning as suggested by the title, or merely flowers on graves is left to poetic interpretation.
It is clear what Godspeed made this record about. The Canadian group that is led by Efrim Menuck is open in their political believes and anarchist mindset. This would usually be the part of the review where – like other writers – an uplifting tone would be chosen to wax politically, but… I’m not gonna do that.
Instead, I will confront a part of this album’s name that I haven’t talked about so far: the choice to introduce it with the two words “No Title”. Because the album isn’t merely named after what comes after: it is classified as having no title. As absence of a title. As silence. Void. Demarcating an inability – or perhaps, a lack of words. When I addressed the death count in Gaza previously, I left out that early reports from many big publications would side with the same statement that Joe Biden made, linked to above. Quite frankly, this, too, marks an absence.
As a journalist, writing about what occurs is only ever as important as what is being left out, or edited out. In religion, philosophy, politics and activism we have been taught that there must be a reliance on civility and transparency – we must uphold standards, or else it would mean the end of our civilisation, of our society, of our soul. And we have seen where this leads – after the horrific attacks on September 11 2001, we witnessed years of the US waging middle eastern wars that, in the end, resulted in horrific bloodshed, destabilising entire regions and leaving thousands of civilians dead. Each country, each society, each period of humanity confronted similar moments – simply because it was part of the societal contract. Yet we – the journalers of history – seem unable to use these words now. Few artists, and even fewer of the journalists I know, post about Gaza.
Yet, as of today, 128 journalists have been reported killed in Gaza. Click on this link. Please. Because you will rarely see this reported elsewhere. As of today, American Jewish reporter Jeremy Loffredo has reportedly been detained for over 24 hours. There seems to be no American article on his detainment so far. In the case of 26 year old American Turkish Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, who was reportedly killed by snipers while protesting, Biden reportedly hadn’t even called her family to extend his condolences.
I could go on – but I am too exhausted. It’s this silence that rings loudly. The “West” has long claimed to be a global lighthouse of civility and righteousness – now silence persists. Words are not spoken. Godspeed’s new album is an incredible and emotional gut punch – likely their best since their re-emergence. It’s incredibly memorable, heavy and rousing. It could have had a title – but it has none. As of 13 February 2024, 28,340 Dead. As of 10 October 2024, 42,010 Dead. My exhaustion is incomparable to what other humans go through in this moment.
86%
