LIFT YOUR SKINNY FISTS LIKE ANTENNAS TO HEAVEN

The coolest album title ever? Definitely. One of the most accessible albums of all time? Definitely not. The crowning achievement of the musical force known as Godspeed you! Black Emperor? It very well just might be. It's certainly their most "polished" release to date, at least. "Storm" is the archetypical Godspeed composition, it is a great song if you want to give someone an idea about that the band is all about. It has the slow start, the intense climaxes, the moody atmoshpere, the pre-recorded tapeloops, the politics, the diverse instrumentation, and to tp it all off, it's of absolutely stunning quality. The same goes with the third composition "Sleep". "Storm" and "Sleep" are alike in the sense that they are pretty conventional by post-rock standards. "Static" and "Antennas to heaven" are different, and there is a lot of noise in both tracks. Static begins with 5 minutes of... well, "Static", and ends with 5 minutes of what sounds like a sawmill from hell, and "Antennas to heaven has a strange country intro, followed by french kids running around singing, a very short, but equally intense, musical climax, a slower, quiet violin and cello part, and then... 5 minutes of soft, ambient noises. On my first visit to "Lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven", i hated these two tracks, especially the last one, for this reason, and i always skipped these 15 minutes of the album. Therefore, If someone claims that these parts are pointless, i can't blame them, but since then i've started to love the noise as much as the music itself. The noise on this album is the most atmospheric that i have ever heard, and fits perfectly in with the dark landscapes of Godspeed, andi really wouldn't want to be without them. They do, however, make for pretty hard listening if you're not expecting it, is more used to conventional music, or have difficulty concentrating for longer periods of time. (By the way, if that last one is true for you, stay away from this band..)

So, what did i mean before, when i said that "Lift your skinny first like antennas to heaven" is more "polished" that the other albums by Godspeed? Well, if you listen to their debut album, F#A#oo, you really hear that the band hadn't perfected their sound just yet. The sound is hollow, the emotions are dark, the instruments echo and the compositions are jagged. The further you go from there, the more experienced the band gets, the more they find their style, the less i can feel that raw energy from the first album, and while both LYSFLATH and Yanqui U.X.O are great albums, there is a charm to F#A#oo that i just can't resist. So yes, i am sure that Lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven may very well be the best and most diverse album from Godspeed and surely worthy of the five golden stars that constitute a masterpiece of an album, but in my world, the debut and the EP both beat it.

Yes, it is dark, and yes it might not gel completely, but i can't recommend this album enough to everyone who feels that emotion is the most important part of their music, and is prepared to give up on some of the instrumental virtuosity. If you allow it, Godspeed WILL blow you away.