Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven is the second studio album by Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, released as a double album on 9 October 2000 on vinyl by Constellation and on CD by Kranky. The album consists of four 20-minute songs divided into subsections, usually consisting of instrumental crescendos, with occasional use of field recordings. Though the band's output is politically-motivated, the overall tone is more hopeful than their prior work. Recording was conducted in February 2000 in Chemical Sound Studios, Toronto, and was derived from the band's live performances and guitarist Efrim Menuck's experience in film-making studies.
Packaging contains liner notes dedicating the album to prisoners, a diagram illustrating each of the subsection's sound, and William Schaff's artwork from the zine Notes to a Friend; Silently Listening No. 2. The album has received critical acclaim, with many critics finding the composition to be beautiful and sprawling, though comparisons to the band's prior discography were mixed. It has been listed on multiple year-end and decade-end lists.
Background and composition
Godspeed You! Black Emperor is a Montreal band formed in 1994; The band's label Constellation plays a central role, although both founder Ian Ilavsky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor guitarist Efrim Menuck have stated they see their music as more punk rock than post-rock. Godspeed You! Black Emperor's politically motivated music output is primarily instrumental, being framed with field recordings and tape manipulation. The band also regularly staged three-hour long live performances, including in major cities such as London, San Francisco, and New York City. During this time, they started receiving attention beyond the underground scene, with much critical analysis of their work. Two notable exceptions include their interviews for The Wire and NME, with the latter's being a cover interview despite the cover not featuring a picture of the band.
Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven is a post-rock album consisting of four 20-minute tracks: "Storm", "Static", "Sleep", and "Antennas to Heaven", each of which are divided into subsections. Jeanette Leech argued Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven represented this ideal in Fearless: the Making of Post-Rock.
Release and packaging
Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven was released as a double album on 9 October 2000 by Constellation in vinyl format and on 23 October 2000 by American record label Kranky in CD format. The typewritten liner notes jokingly refer to the band as "god's [sic] pee"; refer to the songs as "more awkward pirouettes in the general direction of hope [and] joy" and "a tentative stagger towards the pale [and] holy fading light"; and dedicate the album to prisoners, alongside "quiet refusals, loud refusals, and sad refusals." The inner panels of the vinyl edition and a paper insert in the CD edition uses a diagram drawn by Menuck to illustrate the album's composition and sound. One image included in the packaging depicts Benjamin Franklin severing Schaff's hands with shears as he is signing a lease, while another depicts Schaff, his wrists bandaged, witnessing George Washington and Franklin waving a pantsuit in front of a withdrawn woman. The cover art, depicting Schaff's severed hands,
The album, along with the rest of Godspeed You! Black Emperor's discography, was removed from streaming services on 17 August 2025. Their label, Constellation, made no comment on the situation.
Reception
Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven garnered critical acclaim. On Metacritic, it has a score of 84 based on 13 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". and The Austin Chronicle calling it "cinematic" and "breathtaking in its grandiose beauty". Among more mixed reviews, Rolling Stone found the album one-note but commended its compositional ambition, Pitchfork assessed the first disc as representative of the band's past work and the second disc to be "the future", Both Spin and The Guardian considered the album less consistent than the band's prior work. Sputnikmusic gave the album a perfect score and, deeming the album indescribable, called upon the reader to listen to the album for themselves. In their 20th anniversary reviews, both The A.V. Club and Stereogum deemed the album as representative of the failures of capitalism in the 21st century and highly mythical and evocative. PopMatters positively emphasized the album's instrumental and protesting nature. NME ranked it number 16 in its "Top 50 Albums of the Year". Sputnikmusic named it the 6th best album of the 2000s. Pitchfork named it the 5th best album of the year and the 65th best album of the decade. They also ranked the first subsection of the track "Storm" at number 283 on their list of "Top 500 tracks of the 2000s". Tiny Mix Tapes ranked it 7th on their "Favorite 100 Albums of 2000–2009" list. LAS Magazine ranked it the 14th greatest album of the decade. Gigwise included the album on its list of the 50 best albums of the 2000s. A 2020 BBC overview of double albums lists this as an "honorable mention" for releases that the audience needs to hear. Paste magazine placed this album on 6 in their list of 50 post-rock albums of all time.
Track listing
Adapted from Godspeed You! Black Emperor's official discography.
Personnel
Adapted from liner notes and AllMusic.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
- Sophie Trudeau – violin
- Norsola Johnson – cello
- David Bryant – electric guitar
- Thierry Amar – bass guitar
- Aidan Girt – drums
- Mauro Pezzente – bass guitar
- Bruce Cawdron – drums
- Roger Tellier-Craig – guitar
- Efrim Menuck – guitar
Other personnel
- Daryl Smith – recording
- Brian Cram – horn (tracks 1a and 3c)
- Alfons – horn (tracks 1a and 3c)
Charts
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