Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven - Godspeed You! Black Emperor

 Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven – Godspeed You! Black Emperor

(2000)

Guys, this album is so good. This is a freewriting exercise because I haven't posted anything to this blog in well over a year (despite what my last post promised), but that's okay because I don't need to collect my thoughts for this album. Just like you don't need me to tell you that this album is good: every indiehead on the planet who also isn't a bitter contrarian will tell you that this album is a masterpiece. 4 tracks, 80+ minutes, post-rock bliss, crescendo-core, anarchism. It's not for everyone, but if you have the patience and the time, it's a must-hear.

I consider this album to be a "tribute" to humanity, an ode to all the things we've done, a parade of all the mistakes we've made. I remember it was listening to/thinking about the passage in "...Like Antennas to Heaven," in which we hear a field recording of children playing when I realized: "It's their world we are destroying. We're ruining it for them, and they've done nothing to deserve this." A fitting realization for a song that opens with a folk section with bad parenting advice, contains a melancholic guitar solo, and ends with a hell of a soundscape. Literally. The last few minutes sound like the wind blowing over a barren wasteland before to violins come forward like the last two people on earth finally coming forth to take a stand and say, "We resist." Life has a way of beating you down; we keep trying to kill each other, yet we always find some way to survive.

Anyway, that's the last track, my favorite of the four. The opener is also a certified hood classic, as it presents what I believe to be a reinterpretation of the Creation story from Genesis, complete with a post-rock rendition of Amazing Grace, symbolizing the peace of the garden. From there, the music turns sinister (just like two people from the garden) before resolving into a field recording of the PA system in an Arco AM/PM Mini-Market somewhere in Los Angeles, where we are reminded that anyone who offers to pump gas, wash windows, or solicit products is not employed by or affiliated with this facility. They're probably poor and looking for whatever work they can find in an economy that openly hates them, but there's no sympathy for them; we left that behind in the garden. The song ends with a cavernous piano piece accompanied by a speech so impassioned yet distorted, the only thing I can make out is that something mattered to this guy.

"Static" has the weird preacher preaching about weird stuff. Can I really knock it if it brings someone comfort? The violin over the top of the preaching doesn't inspire much hope though. This whole album, apart from the very first and very last moments, is hopeless. "Static" is an uncomfortable track, as music and melody takes a back seat to lengthy drone sections. Maybe that freaky preacher is just another instrument droning in my ear. When the track isn't droning, the band gives us what is perhaps the most energetic and yet sinister section on the album. Wailing guitar notes assault the ears as the drums get faster and faster and faster. It's easy to forget the movement began with a few notes on the double-bass. How did we get this far gone?

"Sleep" is the track I haven't mentioned yet. Did you know they used to sleep on the beaches of Coney Island? Things changed though. Life moves on, and the norms of the past fade into obscurity. This is the track where they play the guitar with a screwdriver, using it like a short violin bow to create one of the most dour sounds I've ever heard. It sounds like the guitar is weeping. I too get sad about things long gone and forgotten, but I need to keep moving forward. Life doesn't slow down for grief. Like the rhythm of this song, life plods along. We do get a happy, genuinely uplifting passage at the end of this song; maybe it's a celebration of there here-and-now and all the beauty that holds. Don't forget the closer though: that one packs a gut-punch.

In closing, this album is perfect. This album is flawless. This album captures the highs and the lows of being a human. Don't let the bastards grind you down. Lift your skinny fists, dammit!