Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (2LP) [CONSTELLATION]

Why you'll love it

Lift Your Skinny Fists is one of the defining post-rock records ever made, and it lands on every best-of-the-decade list. Four sprawling movements ("Storm," "Static," "Sleep" and "Antennas to Heaven"), each filling one side, recorded at Chemical Sound in Toronto.

This edition

• 2LP set, one 20-minute piece per side
• Constellation pressing (cat# CST012)
• William Schaff artwork and the band's hand-drawn diagram insert

About the album

Godspeed You! Black Emperor never did anything the easy way, and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven is the proof. Four pieces, each about 20 minutes long, each one building from field recordings and quiet drones to colossal, goosebump-inducing crescendos and back again. Montreal's finest recorded it at Chemical Sound here in Toronto in early 2000, working from the shapes the songs had taken on stage.

It's a political record (the liner notes dedicate it to prisoners) but it's also, unexpectedly, a hopeful one, especially next to the bleakness of their debut. "Storm" might be the best entry point into the whole post-rock genre, and once you're in, "Static," "Sleep" and "Antennas to Heaven" will keep you there. Lights off, volume up.

Four sides, four pieces, no skipping. Pull up a chair; you'll be a while.

Also at Kops: more Godspeed You! Black Emperor on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Constellation (cat# CST012), the 2000 album.