LIFT YOUR SKINNY FISTS LIKE ANTENNAS TO HEAVEN

Even if this is almost all instrumental, this is so theatrical and cinematic, it's just like how you wouldn't want a great movie to be spoiled. The vocal samples and the short bit of singing on the final track add to the album, but this story is told almost entirely through instrumentals. If I had to describe it, I would say "87 minutes of monolithic doomsday post-rock?". This is the most film-like record I have ever heard, and again, despite it being nearly all instrumental, I really get the vision of this apocalyptic world they try to portray, and the emotions they convey, with huge senses of dread and helplessness, with also triumphant highs. Alright, now that you all have listened to the album without spoilers, it is time to talk about my top 4 favorite tracks off of Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven.

This whole album is comprised of simply 4 tracks, all in the 19 to 23 minute range, but they are all filled with multiple movements, (which are very hard to follow with the guideline that comes with my physical copy). The beginning of the opener, "Storm" is the title movement. If Godspeed's reputation of making music for the end of the world is true, then this section is a pre-apocalyptic time, before the Earth went to Hell, because the first approximate 6 minutes is an uplifting flurry of strings and guitars, that is gorgeously layered, and then even more so once the triumphant brass is added in. This ends in an explosion of instruments, and all that is left in the fallout is the violin, faintly droning away in the background. This very smoothly transitions into the "Gathering Storm" segment, where over the wailing violins, the electric guitar performs a cover of the tradition hymn of "Amazing Grace". This song has been covered a million times, but this is unlike any other version, because this will be the darkest and most dissonant version you will hear. This closes on a discordant ends, before passages of sound collages and vocal samples appear. If the end of days haven't started yet, this is certainly where the beginning of the end starts. The samples are further evidence of this too, the first being recorded from a market owned by an ARCO gas station, which could be a critique on the power owned by America's oil industry, and then chanting can be heard from what appears to be a military general, indicating a potential doomsday war, and the whole track finishes with his voice becoming slowly more distorted and indistinguishable.

"Static" has a glooming, mysterious start, compared to the "Storm", with its haunting ambience, and after a short series of soundscapes and shrills, a sample of a preacher plays, which is an incredibly eerie moment. Her voice was pitched down, making it sound like that of a man, while the strings surrounding her sound like they are crying. Her preaching is initially like your typical Evangelical sermonizing, but things then get even more uneasy when she starts yelling about a revelation she's had, and how she knows what isn't even in the Bibles yet. As her voice fades out, the strings remain and transition into the "The World Police and Friendly Fire" movement. They transform into a slow building, densely textured choir of strings, with this weeping guitar lead, that continues until the more traditional rock inspired bass enters. This becomes one of the most intense moments on the record, when all of the instruments start to slowly pick up the speed and the volume. Just when it reaches its full speed, the track reaches its climax, as the tempo drops, and the guitar screams away. At this point, the track lives up to its title, and I don't know how they manage to get the noises they manage to create out of this single guitar. It's hard to describe the exact sounds at this part, but I would encourage anyone to listen to this movement if you were going to choose any on the album.

"Sleep" is the third track, which kicks off the second disc, and it begins with the audio of an elderly man rambling on about Coney Island. This clip is meme'd to death by the Godspeed fanbase, but it is actually a depressing segment of sorts. He is reminiscing about his past, when he used to sleep on the beach as a child, but Coney Island was never the same after WWII, and he is disappointed that no one else will get to have the same experience. The final line of "They don't do that anymore. Things changed, you see. They don't sleep anymore on the beach..." is such a depressing moment and the music to follow is equally as sad. The guitar is strumming these eerie minor chords, with only a few bass hits, and more and more layers of instrumentation is added on top over the track's 23 minutes. It reaches as a small crescendo as the drums enter with a cymbal hit, and the guitar is playing this haunting, ghostly lead melody. Something I love about Godspeed is captured especially well on this track, and that is their ability to always come back with an even bigger crescendo once you think you reached the song's peak. This happens countless times in this track alone, and they still manage to surprise me with every listen. After numerous climaxes, they reels things back in with the "Broken Windows, Locks of Love Pt. III" portion, but this still has larger than life crescendos, especially when the trumpets and drums enter, and it sounds hopeful and triumphant, despite the feeling of loss and grief in its first half.

The only account of signing to appear on the LP begins the closer, "Like Antennas to Heaven...", which features then ex-guitarist, Mike Moya singing the nursery rhyme of "Baby-O", over a bare acoustic guitar. The lyrics of giving the baby a bottle of gin, and sticking a finger in the baby's eye, is very unsettling, which continues on the ambient section of sound collage and chimes, before the voices of Quebecois children singing can be heard. It's an off-putting and unassuming start to the track, but this transforms into what is likely the loudest and most unpredictable crescendo on the album, where it seems like things are fading out, but wailing harmonized guitars come out of nowhere, with surprisingly beautiful results. I love the drone that progresses from this point, not only because of the guitars and the drums added in around the 10 minute mark, but to me, this is the perfect way to finish off the album. The drone has that sad sense of despair I was referencing on earlier tracks, but it ends on an ever so slightly uplifting notes. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but it sounds like Godspeed is saying that even if the world sucks, maybe there's a chance for a little bit of hope going forward. This could be completely wrong, but that's just the way this read to me, just like any previous analysis I've mentioned for this record.

It is impossible for me to go over every single detail, because Lift Your Skinny Fists is so dense with musical ideas across its 4 tracks, I wouldn't be able to write about them all. 5.0 I enjoy ambience at times

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