Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven by Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven
2000
Post Rock
Kranky

1. Storm
2. Static
3. Sleep
4. Antennas To Heaven
(Also included is a 900x900 album cover .jpeg)

"...The only thing is, they see it
Not through the light of God, and the way I show you,
I show you to see it through the light of God,
And the understanding of God.
Because when you see the face of God, you will die
And there will be nothing left of you
Except the God-man, the God-woman,
The heavenly man, the heavenly woman,
The heavenly child!
There'll be prayer on your lips day and night.
There'll be a song of jubilee waiting for your king.
There will be nothing you will be be looking for in this world
Except in for your god.
This is all a dream.
A dream in death..."

"Static"

I bought Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven without ever hearing one note of it. I was just so struck by the name of the band, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and the name of the album, along with the eerily ambiguous cover art. I ordered my copy offline, not knowing what to expect. To tell you the truth, I had a strange feeling that I was going to be listening to some epic, progressive math rock band. I was very happily mistaken. Godspeed You! Black Emperor is the post rock band to end all post rock bands.

When the package arrived, it came with two other CDs I had ordered at the same time. Madvillainy by MF DOOM, and Things Fall Apart by The Roots, two other albums that I had never heard before in my life. I normally don't buy music this hastily, but I was so interested in these 3 bands that I felt like I would ruin the experience for myself if I didn't have everything in front of me when I listened for the first time.

I listened to Godspeed You! Black Emperor last, as I was going to sleep, because I knew I couldn't stay awake through their ridiculous track lengths. The next day, my dad was getting on a plane to be taken to a hospital. He was going to undergo a serious spinal corrective surgery, and he was worried that he would come back worse than he was, along with the rest of my family. When I listened to this album for the first time, with all these thoughts spinning around my head, trying to fall asleep, it was perfect. I think about it every time I listen.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor is one of those bands that I have a very hard time trying to describe to people properly. Their music is so good that you have to hear it to believe it for yourself, otherwise you will be convinced that it's just simply not for you. Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven is their best album, and it is a 2 disc double album consisting only of 4 songs, 2 of which take up each CD of the set. The shortest song is nearly 19 minutes, and the longest is 23. However, they somehow aren't boring. Their songs consist of many movements, much like in classical music, that flow into each other seamlessly.

Their sound is also heavily influenced by classical music. I like to describe them as being a classical rock band, but they aren't classical sounding at all, and they aren't rock sounding at all. They actually teeter on the edge of ambient from time to time, but their music is altogether very melodic. It's ridiculously hard to describe and I apologize for doing so.

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven is split up into several movements for the sole reason that it's an experience. Listening to it all the way through creates a mood and a mindset that I don't think I've ever seen be done in any other album. It opens with "Storm," which begins as a triumphant march, like a holy band playing to exhaustion, welcoming and accompanying your first steps in heaven. And everything progresses naturally after that, oftentimes taking more grave turns. The entire album is littered with recordings of people (and places) speaking, which serve as reference points to exactly where you are in your journey through it all.

It's altogether very moving.

Click here to download part 1 (46.67 MB)
Click here to download part 2 (47.18 MB)
Click here to download part 3 (88.46 MB)

Buy it!
CD / Digital Copy