F# A# ∞

Sometimes it happens that, when you listen to an album, you stop existing and you're sucked into another world. For me F#A#oo is such an album.

The album opens with a low voice reciting a dark poem which conjures up images of destruction and armageddon. The rest of the album is mostly instrumental, and follows the same mood set up by the introductory poem. The only really uplifting part is the outro to "The Dead Flag Blues" with violin and glockenspiel and it could trick you into thinking you're waking up from the bad dream that is the rest of the song. If you continiue listening to the rest of the album, however, you realise that part WAS the dream itself, and the darkness is everywhere, (almost like that part in Matrix: Revolutions, where Trinity sees the sky for the first time ever) drowning you in its void.

Most will say that "Lift your skinny first like antennas to heaven" is GY!BE's masterpiece, and they're probably right. It is a lot more polished, while F#A#oo has a much more raw and jagged feel to it. The sound is almost hollow and echoing, and there are parts which i really could have done without (i don't always listen to the ending from eas hastings, and there is a part in Providence which is just silence for 4 minutes before the last climax, and i've always wondered about that). While it is nowhere near flawless, and "Lift your skinny fists..." is certainly more accomplished musically, this is the one that i prefer.

It lacks the direction ("where are we going?") that other post-rock albums such as "Lift your skinny fists.." or "Takk.." may have, but it doesn't matter to me, as this is an album you shuld just feel without thinking about purpose or direction.