LIFT YOUR SKINNY FISTS LIKE ANTENNAS TO HEAVEN

First off, I can almost guarantee you won't get it first listen. Sorry but that's how it is, suck it up and listen again, eventually I'm pretty sure that you will fall in love.

We start off with some very quiet cello, violin and guitar driven music which immeadiately introduces us to one of the albums best features: how well the instruments blend together. Simple thing that really makes a difference. The music crescendos ever-so slowly just making your ears glide along the notes. Eventually it reaches it's epic peak of amazing music, now driven by electric guitar. It does the crescendo thing again and soon enough you just crave the music. It's a trip, it really is. Another cool feature of this album is the voices and sound effects you get. In the first track after the second crescendo comes to it's slow we get some type of overcom voice suggesting that we avoid contact with a certain type of persons. The voice grows full of static and eventually seemingly bursts and the quiet piano takes it's place. The track ends with some piano and violin playing quietly, a very melancholic ending.

The next track starts with some kind of eerie noise that tingles your ears. Various sound effects surround the eerie noise and creates a very unsettling atmosphere. After awhile it turns into static, as the title suggests, and then into more of the violin and guitar driven music (which has a welcome return). Now voices of some type of religous man surround it, somehow this adds to the eerie atmosphere. Then after some very quiet bits violin and some type of plucked instrument it starts crescendoing again. After a violent burst of electric guitar and violin driven music (which lasts sometime, this section is just plain epic) it slows to the eerie noises that were at the start and eventually ends.

To start the next disc, some old man is rambling about the days when he was younger at Coney Island. This creates comic relief but somehow has a sense of unease about it. This turns into (once again) string driven music which crescendos but slows and soft guitar music starts. It crescendos once again from there into a slow almost jam-like section which crescedos once again (if you haven't noticed the whole album is pretty much one big crescendo) into some more powerful guitar music with strings backing it. It maintains the heavy atmosphere for some time before starting to come to a slow. But soon the slow picks up pace and becomes fairly heavy again. Then it becomes even more heavy! This track ends with the electric guitar slowly fading out with the drums.

The next track starts with some kind of country jam (weird to start the track) but that is eventually drowned out by synths. Then a nice little glockenspiel solo revives the eerie feeling. (A good word to describe this music is moody, because it often shifts moods slowly and rapidly) After some children's voices the violin comes back in and sort of soothes your mind. That doesn't last long, after a short pause the whole scene bursts into a heavy guitar driven piece. After that slows, more piano and synth (I believe that's what I hear) and soon some violin starts to somewhat pick up the pace. Drums and guitar come end and the moodiness continues. Crescendo again and the decrescendo again to more violin. From here it doesn't really pick up pace again but electronic noises drown out the violin and the album ends with an eerie feeling, leaving you exhausted.

Simply (and this term is almost a cliche when describing this band) an eargasm. Music so hard to describe, so hard to get, and yet... You love it. It's just a rarity among music nowadays, something really refreshing to the ear.

Go ahead and grab a copy, you may not like it at first but trust me, if you listen hard, you'll love it.

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