Existence on Earth has always been difficult and unfair, so you could plop Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s mournful epics down at any point of the human timeline and find an appropriately bleak scene to soundtrack. Somewhere in the band’s stormy sound are slim threads connecting caveman scuffles to ghoulish CEOs, and the discovery of fire to the atomic bomb. But GY!BE’s special gift is light: Their death marches morph into triumphal catharses before the grief becomes too much to bear. Because we have to go on, find reasons to live, ways to fight. by Chris Stamm