Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Storm
2. Static

Disc 2:

1. Sleep
2. Antennas to Heaven

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5379 in Music
• Released on: 2007-01-08
• Number of discs: 2

Amazon.com
Canada's Godspeed You Black Emperor raise the ante on their already ambitious orchestral rock by releasing a double CD of material as their second full-length album. The group combines the drums and guitar of typical rock-band instrumentation with horns and strings to create a music built around drones and slowly evolving melodic figures. It rises and falls from delicate introductory passages to unabashed grand climaxes. Their juxtaposition of drums with violins and lush romantic tonality brings to mind Rachel's, but their compositional scale and the pounding repetitive intensity of their dynamic peaks evoke Glenn Branca's The Ascension. Although the two discs are indexed at only two 21-minute tracks each, the package includes a handy road map to the movements into which each is subdivided. The opening piece starts with five minutes of a 15-beat circular melodic pattern that is gradually embellished as the volume swells to an ecstatic roar. The release drops down to a pastoral drone that rebuilds to support an acid-etched guitar solo, which in turn yields to a unified 4/4 kraut rock pound that eventually explodes, leaving behind field recordings of public announcements mingled with wandering late-night Swell Maps piano. The other pieces use a similar set of sonic building blocks to take the listener on comparable journeys. Fans of Godspeed's previous work will be very happy, and the curious might want to hop on board as well. --Bob Bannister

Customer Reviews

Emotional overheat
In the darkening mood of the 1990s, Canada's Godspeed You Black Emperor became the most out-there voice in the music world with their combination of radical political narratives and music capable of burning the heart of a listener like nobody ever had before.

Whereas bands like Slint, Bark Psychosis and Don Cabellero had founded the quiet-to-loud dynamics that permitted post-rock to move "popular" music to the depth of the heart like it had never been before, Godspeed You Black Emperor added string and horn sections to an already multilayered guitar attack (three guitars) to create pieces that were so much born of teamwork that few of the identities of band members were ever revealed.

The way in which the drums and percussion fire when the band does move into kickdown is quite incredible, giving the opening and best track "Storm", the status of being perhaps the most emotional track ever known to rock music. The passion that oozes from even the quietest parts of the song is enough for a definite recommendation: in a part around the nine-minute mark in particular, the emotion of the guitars alone beats anything heavy metal or punk could ever achieve by thrashing and reminds one of Sofia Gubaidulina's masterpiece In Croce. When "Storm" moves onto dense drumbeats, the emotional energy and anger it seethes is greater yet. Moreover, if one listens carefully, one realises with what passion every member of Godspeed You Black Emperor plays with, notably on the violin solo around thirteen minutes in. The loudest drum rhythms are literally martial in tone but it is the endless energy of the piece that makes "Storm" an absolute landmark for epic rock pieces that nobody before it had ever came close to. The slow piano at the end seems anticlimactic but the way in which the background noises are put into the song show the band is not lightening up.

"Static", the other track on the first disc, opens with an electronic ticking rhythm (hence the title, one imagines) before a narrative sounding like a preacher that becomes passionately tearful as it fades out. The buzzing rhythm is then joined by violin and viola to create a hypnotic effect likened to 1970s krautrock. When the percussion kicks in, however, it gets very fast even over another violin solo. The way Sophie Trudeau's violin solos over intense and visceral guitars around fifteen minutes in is a remarkable feat that should be heard even if you have no time to sit through the whole piece - then, a piercing guitar solo turns "Static" for a few fleeting seconds into the most furious flow of energy that could ever be imagined. The last part, as with "Storm", is a kind of anti-climax with strings and synthesisers dominating.

"Sleep" begins with an old man speaking about Coney Island and then moves onto a very simple guitar line that, though played on an electric, is very remiscent of the acoustic parts of Spiderland. When the full band enters, the strings are quite piercing yet make for a remarkably tuneful, even beautiful passage around eight minutes in. The ferocious attack of three guitars and two basses, however, takes over in the next part around ten minutes in without the song's beauty disappearing. The next part is even more piercing than similar parts of "Static", but the latter half of "Sleep" is again very like Spiderland in its intense guitar work.

"Antennas to Heaven" begins with a simple folk song whose lightness adds a contrast to the band's work before the fierce guitars and strings return. The sound of a child gently singing is a second prelude, for the louder bits of this piece, if still quieter than the other three, are still deep and passionate like almost no other band has ever been, rounding off one of the most remarkable recordings in rock history.

With its remarkable changes of mood, tempo and texture infused with a level of emotion that can only be described as overheat, "Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven" stands as one of the greatest albums made in the 31 years since I was born. Even if it is too much to sit through each piece in one sitting, just seeing the intensity with which every member plays is enough to make your heart feel so deeply. The narratives, as on all Godspeed You Black Emperor albums, add yet another dimension to a unique and truly great group.

The king of crescendos
Still a high water mark for the sub-genre, the four tracks making up this double disc represents Godspeed's most ambitious, immersive audio experience yet. Though the album is not without it's bloat which some may deride as pretentious anti-establishment noodling, and the uproarious fade-in seems to be far more memorable then the ambiguously stretched out finale, one would be hard pressed to cite a modern rock disc which offers the highest highs and lowest lows in a more organically epic presentation.

Like a Dream
Found this at a library being sold for 50 cents. A good buy. It's like some kind of dreamscape to me, only slowed down from dreams' usual chaotivc nature and put under magnifying glass. The music seems to take me on a cosmic journy of sorts, probing through what seems to be the darkness and random memory snippets of a person's mind. it's the sound of your subconcious being drilled into and tossed around by some farming machine whose name escapes me.