This is the second and final Godspeed You! Black Emperor record that you'll find on this list. It is the followup to F#A#infinity which I previously wrote about on this blog a few days prior and an album that lands a lot higher than its predecessor. Lift Your Skinny Fists came out in 2000 and is a monumental release for post-rock as a genre, inspiring many followers and being a staple amongst what is often known as the "second-wave" of post-rock which consisted of tracks around 15-minutes in length with a big lineup of musicians creating rock music that owes its influences to classical compositions in structure, while being straightforward rock muisc seeing to instrumentalisation and performance.
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven would later go on to be the defining factor in how post-rock as a genre would develop in today's decade where most would consider us to be in a the "third-wave" of post-rock where bands like Explosions In The Sky and This Will Destroy You copy what Godspeed You! were doing, not only thematically, but also musically. While post-rock might be considered a niche genre, and lots of people probably have a different favorite when it comes to the post-rock of the last decade, you can't really take away the influential status that this record has on the modern day music of the genre.
The album consists of four tracks, all reaching around 20-minutes of playtime, making the album almost 90 minutes long. The tracks evolve and shapeshift during their duration, always closing of as something completely different from how it started of. It's crescendo based compositions, with glimpses of field recordings, sampled vocals, and spoken word being a big element of what would come to create the atmosphere and feeling of the record without there having to be any need for vocals on the album.
Godspeed You! is often cited as a very political band which might be a funny thing to say considering that none of their records (not counting All Lights Fucked) are completely void of any kind of sung vocals. There's the spoken word section of the opening track on F#A#infinity, aswell as the spoken word on Blaise Bailey Finnegan on the 1999 EP Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada which are what contributes to the fact of Godspeed's members being somewhat anarchistic and anti-government.
On Lift Your Skinny Fists, the only spoken word you'll really find is the recording of a man speaking about Coney Island, in the opening minutes of the track Sleep, the behemoth of the record. Sleep starts of with the man being nostalgic about growing up around Coney Island, closing of with retelling of how him and his friends used to sleep on the beach: "We used to sleep on the beach! Sleep overnight! They don't do it anymore though, things change you know. They don't sleep anymore on the beach." The story ends with the melancholic string section coming in and slowly, with the help of a few guitars the track takes of into a haunting chaos of frantic drumming as the track sets of into static about ten minutes in. The second half of the song has us reaching building towards yet another crescendo as the track sets of into something minimal and sad, as the mans story of Sleep comes to a final end.
This is how most songs on Lift Your Skinny Fists are built. They are made around the crescendos that would come to be the main factor of the bands that were inspired by Godspeed! but they're always built and orchestrated with a ton of emotion. I don't need the man from Sleep to tell me his sad story to feel affected by Godspeed's music on this record, there's enough emotion loaded into the intro on Storm or the climax with the singing children on Antennas To Heaven. It's an album full of different kinds of emotion and the way its portrayed, through a singular rock bands long performances is a beauty in itself.
I first came across this record during my last semester of what I'd assume is the Swedish equivalent of high school. At the time I wasn't sure of what to think of it. It was so incredibly long and with so little to hold onto for someone who wasn't able to completely engulf myself in the music and not use it as background music but with time I grew to appreciate greatly.
Even today I'm not sure if I can think of any record in the genre that truly compares and outshines it in what Godspeed was doing on this record. There's no instrumental record in the genre of rock music that really grabs me emotionally as much as this one does. Maybe it's some kind of nostalgia, maybe I'm just infatuated with this record. It's one of the most unique experiences on this list and alongside its darker counterpart F#A#infinity, one that I can not recommend enough. I'd suggest putting on some headphones and just lying down on your bed, couch, in the sun or wherever and just completely immersing yourself in the music. In a track like Antennas To Heaven or Sleep and just treating yourself to the experience of listening closely to all the tiny little details that this record has in store for you. It is one of the most unique experiences in post-rock alongside Spiderland, Soundtracks For The Blind and Telegraphs In Negative/Mouths Trapped In Static and something I wish more people out there had heard.
Do yourself a favor and listen to this record, if only to get an idea of how the second-wave of post-rock came to be and how Godspeed You! Black Emperor came to be the legendary band that they are today.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven [2000]
9/10
Anton Öberg Sysojev
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