lift yr skinny wrists like antennas to heaven!

25 years ago today the world was engulfed in the light akin to the flash of a hydrogen bomb. it covered every variable surface on earth. and now, we all have come to know this event as the releasing of godspeed you! black emperor's second album, 'Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven". like hiroshima, those that came into contact and survived have had lasting effects. nothing that was known before, of course. for nothing is inflicted on the person, for it's not physical. the light drives whatever hides inside to come out.

with hands raised high, pointing in no discernible direction but upwards, the album placed on its cardboard brown background urges us to raise our hands to the sky. what's the particular reason? whether there's a god or not it's best to strive for greatness. in essence: just try. the album hosts material that evokes suffering, longing, hatred, and love. it mirrors the catastrophe of the world, from the storms, to the static, to the sleep, and in the end to the message at hand: trying. in the throes of this passion you're met with things out of your control, things that just happen for no reason other than that they do. the album's beautiful sounds will cradle you through a journey of highs and lows. beauty and evil. creation and destruction; for it can't all be pretty. the opening horn toots in 'storm' fill you with wonder, and the frenzied screeching of 'world police/friendly fire' with cold uneasiness. it's all over this place and it's like listening to the breathing, real life story from a billion different mouths. it's all here, forever to listen at your discretion. 

'sleep' is my personal favorite and is the most well-known. it's probably their most easily approachable song, for how straight-forward it is, like a walk in the park leading up to running full speed down the highway with cars on either side. driven by some passion unknown to us it just feels like we need to run. to keep going. the song starts with the memoirs of an old man, reminiscing on the old days and how peaceful and secure it all was. well, that's not how it is anymore. the world just keeps getting crazier and crazier it seems. the guitar whines in and leads with a few chords. from here it swells into this massive soundscape. it soon cuts into a driving, frenzied snare-driven groove that is more sprawling, and seemingly alive. all these minute details to add to this bigger thing. the heartbeat of the bass drum, the whirring of the screwdriver, the dance between the violin and guitars. it's all come alive, and just like anything else, it fades away into nothing. it becomes just noise, just static. no doubt analogous to the human experience, perhaps this is the moment when we meet death. the burning passion of the previous part nosedives into a gully and out from the wreckage comes a slow, melancholic bridge. when that horn hits in 'broken windows/locks of love' we know it's all paid off. it's all been worth it. this could be the moment we die, the moment we're born, or the moment after a great epiphany. it can be any huge swell of emotion. endlessly applicable. always meaningful. the song quiets down after getting the loudest it possibly could for the 4th time and it saunters off with a quiet drum groove, and ends like it began. a small whisper in the wind. only to sound off again and again until the end of time.