LIFT YOUR SKINNY FISTS LIKE ANTENNAS TO HEAVEN

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven is, without a doubt, the best album in the GY!BE catalog, and may even be the best post rock album ever. It's four tracks each express deep emotion through incredibly straightforward soundscapes. In terms of actual musicianship, one must not look at the complexity of the music, but at the emotion behind it, for every note seems to be placed to achieve the maximum emotional response from the listener.

The songs themselves are vast, blazing deserts of sonic power, that conjure up images of hope, love, sadness, and fragile beauty. Every track is seems to live and breathe, which is not always the case with most progressive rock bands. The intense build-ups and climaxes characteristic of GY!BE's sound are present here, but are employed more creatively than on their other albums, so as not to make them the main focus of the songs. Instead, the main draw of this masterpiece is the band's amazing use of field recordings and spoken word, with two perfect examples being the deep, tragic "They Don't Sleep Anymore on the Beach" and the hauntingly beautiful "Chart #3".

"Lift Your Skinny Fists..." is a wonderful album, and one of the few truly deserving of the term "symphonic". It's heavily layered sound allows for listeners to discover something new with each listen, and its vast scope makes it's the truly focused quality of its sound even more impressive. This one is beyond doubt an essential album. 5/5.