Godspeed's Finest Hour (Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven - Godspeed You Black Emperor)

Member Name: xcorlett

Product:	Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven - Godspeed You Black Emperor
Date:	23/03/09 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Long, big, bold and beautiful

Disadvantages: Moments of too much ambience in places

The post-rock genre is thrown about and abused from all sides. People say the tracks are too long, that's it's pretentious junk, that it's weak music or just that it sucks. Well, post-rock takes a good deal of listening and a lack of pre-judgment in order to really "get it". Godspeed are an excellent example of a band deep in the post-rock genre. They produce a combination of loud, uplifting, awe-inspiring classically influenced tracks and slow, meandering journeys through sound. Lift Your Skinny Fists is a magic set of tracks that sounds like it is moving in an out of the eye of a hurricane. For comparative purposes, I guess you could say they sound like Sigur Ros without the vocals and a not-pushed-for-time extended-play Mogwai. They do have their own sound and it is very distinctive. At 85 minutes playing time it will take a little patience. This is a 2 disc album and it comes in a pretty cardboard packaging. It is also available on vinyl which would be my preferred choice. I play it every couple of months and it has retained

1) Storm
The first track builds slowly with a rhythmic marching drum played behind a wonderful simple guitar riff that evokes feelings of floating high about a chain of mountains. Godspeed have an ability to give you the sense that their songs keep building minute after minute after minute with very minor changes in the music keeping your musical spirits aligned. Ten minutes in a Godspeed-only high pitched four-note guitar riff is launched. Violins battle. This is the kind of music that can bring all your thoughts to a halt. Storm is eerie, delicate and emotional and takes you on a journey far from your home. My cat loves this track!

2) The second movement begins with more eerie music, but with less force. At a quarter time, a man begins to relate his experience of God in a rather persuasive manner over the sound of a soaring violin. The man has evangelical energy and it is rather captivating, whatever your belief. The core point here is the sheer energy of communication. Then it quietens down further and we hear sounds that remind you of a dramatic film score. A cello and violin play together and tell you things you don't know.

3) The third movement, "Sleep", is where me and this album really hit it off. It begins with an older gentleman from Coney Island in New York who is telling his story of this demise of the area. He used to "sleep on the beach overnight...they don't do it anymore, things change...see...they don't sleep anymore on the beach". The guy is sad, reminiscent and the sounds that follow are equally as so. Godspeed really outdo themselves here as the music builds to a sublime climax over the next few minutes.

4) The final track, "Antenna's to Heaven" is more of the same, but it has a sense of finality that puts you at ease. It's ambient heavy metal.

Summary: Godspeed's Finest Hour