Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
  • Record Label: Kranky
  • Release Date: Sep 12, 2000
Metascore
84

Universal acclaim - based on 13 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 13
  3. Negative: 0 out of 13
  1. Village Voice
    80
    Godspeed's records will either blow your head off or leave you shrugging, depending on where your personal quest for freedom is taking you.
  2. Neumu.net
    60
    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.
  3. Almost Cool
    90
    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.
  5. The A.V. Club
    80
    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.
  6. Nude As The News
    60
    This ambient/noise/psychedelic amalgam is limited by tedious repetition and a lack of emotional focus.
  7. The Wire
    50
    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]
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  8. MTV.com
    80
    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.
  9. Splendid
    90
    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.
  10. Magnet
    80
    It's exquisitely constructed sound with a sharp punk edge and an anarchist's ear for chaos. [#48, p.92]
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  11. AllMusic
    90
    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.
  12. Alternative Press
    100
    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]
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  13. Mojo
    90
    Godspeed have taken their by-now familiar elements and rearranged them in often beautiful or surprising ways.
  14. Pitchfork
    90
    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.

Awards & Rankings

13
#13 Best Album of 2000
12
#12 Most Discussed Album of 2000
10
#10 Most Shared Album of 2000

User Reviews

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User Score
8.8

Universal acclaim- based on 214 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 192 out of 214
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 214
  3. Negative: 20 out of 214
  1. LukeC
    Aug 16, 2009
    10
    This album is unlike any other. It is utterly timeless, an instant masterpiece and clearly will always be a masterpiece. Having this album 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.… Full Review »
  2. ReubenIsAGod
    Jul 29, 2015
    10
    As i sit in my room, i stare blanking at the piece of paper, it reads, "who am I", i continue to stair blankly, the walls feel as if they areAs i sit in my room, i stare blanking at the piece of paper, it reads, "who am I", i continue to stair blankly, the walls feel as if they are closing in, its as if im drowning, i cant breath, i whimper for help...no one hears.... Im dying, oh god this is it, im dying, my mind twists and turns, i see, and feel myself slowly fading in and out. The room is on fire, ohhh god the children i see them suffer, i hear there screams of agony, is this a delusion, is this just the harsh reality if which i live in, i feel so hollow, my body, ever so limp, i need to get out, have to escape, but, i can't, im trapped within this reality, there is no hope, no pleasure, all there is is nothing, absolutely nothing.

    - 10/10    … Full Review »
  3. chickenbowl
    Mar 19, 2015
    10
    Perfect album. Captures emotion so well. Feel everything from tension to uplift. From tragedy to excitement. This album has lasted 15 yearsPerfect album. Captures emotion so well. Feel everything from tension to uplift. From tragedy to excitement. This album has lasted 15 years easily and is a modern masterpiece.… Full Review »
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