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Zero 7
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
EMAILPRINTby godspeed you black emperor!
Universal acclaim
Based on 13 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 53 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Kranky
Release Date: 12 September 2000
Discs: 2 discs
Genre(s): Rock, Indie, Alternative, Experimental
Summary
The second proper album from the Canadian instrumentalists consists of four independent works(each 18-22 minutes long).... yes, that's 2 songs per CD.
Also By This Artist: Yanqui U.X.O.
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Alternative Press
A massive instrumental effort, as skilled and musical as it is on-the-fly improvised and messy. Seamlessly blending sonic experiments with live group interactions, godspeed saunter through these four extended pieces with ease. [#150, p.94]
Mojo
Godspeed have taken their by-now familiar elements and rearranged them in often beautiful or surprising ways.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven is a massive, achingly beautiful work, alternately elegiac and ferocious. However, Lift plays like an oddly transitional album: much of the first disc presents a refinement of the sound that crystallized on the Slow Riot EP, while the second disc flirts with moments of vertiginous shoegazing, looser rock drumming and reckless crescendos of unalloyed noise. Succinctly, the first disc is easily continuous with their earlier work; the second disc might just be the future.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
The main complaint voiced by critics of Godspeed's music is that their works just repeat the same pattern: start out sparse and slow, build-build-build, crescendo. While there are certainly crescendos, there is no such predictable pattern repeated among the works on Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven -- it's loaded with dynamics, unexpected sections, strong emotions and beauty.
Read Full Review >Almost Cool
Not only has the group taken their sound and refined it even more, but even the ambient soundscapes and parts between the actual songs are more well constructed.
Read Full Review >Splendid
Essentially, you get one disc on which Godspeed You Black Emperor tinkers with their sound a little bit, and one on which they deliver exactly what you've been expecting. That's a good mix.
Read Full Review >Magnet
It's exquisitely constructed sound with a sharp punk edge and an anarchist's ear for chaos. [#48, p.92]
Village Voice
Godspeed's records will either blow your head off or leave you shrugging, depending on where your personal quest for freedom is taking you.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club)
Godspeed's 1999 knockout Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada EP is a more manageable dose for beginners, but music this audacious and ambitious needs to be heard regardless of the challenges it presents.
Read Full Review >MTV.com
From the double album's first echoes of guitar and strings to its droning denouement, godspeed you black emperor! creates a musical soundscape that alternates between flashes of sonic brilliance and moments of quiet ecstasy.
Read Full Review >Nude As The News
This ambient/noise/psychedelic amalgam is limited by tedious repetition and a lack of emotional focus.
Read Full Review >Neumu.net
Unwinds slowly, slipping between ghosted noise-and-field-recording passages and the sustained explosions of big, bombastic caterwaul that have become Godspeed's signature sound.
Read Full Review >The Wire
On earlier releases, the traces of anger, sorrow or despair rippling through the found voices seeded roaring rock improvisations that empathetically rooted and resisted the calamities visited upon them. But the improvising on [Skinny Fists] falls within beat parameters too tightly determined to generate any really useful dissonance. [#200, p.66]
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 9.4 (out of 10) based on 53 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Luke C gave it a10:
This album is unlike any other. It is utterly timeless, an instant masterpiece and clearly will always be a masterpiece. Having this album feels like an honour.
Frank C gave it an8:
I had this composition for at least three now and evertime I listen to it a new layer of it is discovered. I usually stop dead in my tracks when it kicks in. Great music and blows away guest when they least expect it
i i gave it a5:
I fell asleep while listening
fried chicken gave it a10:
How can something be beautiful/hopeful yet be apocalyptic staffan? anyways, great album. best post rock album ever.
Chris R gave it a7:
Holy crap! It's Sigur Ros on heroin! (Or should I say more heroin???) Way to go you crazy French Canucks!
Staffan gave it a10:
The most beautiful, apocalyptic and hopeful record ever made. The record really helps when the world just feels cold. This is gonna be my favourite album forever and ever.
naveed Sultan gave it a3:
I can't figure out why everyone thinks this album is mind blowing, I honestly beleive it's waaaaaay behind Sigur Ros and Explosions in the Sky. I don't think i'll be able to grow into it.
