Review:

on 2007-07-09 SolitaryMan Said:

This album is to post-rock what Pink Floyd's Dark Side was to psychadelic rock; the blueprint, the high-water mark. Released as a double-album with 4 movements split onto both discs, Lift Yr. Skinny Fists is a masterpiece of the rock format being twisted into something much larger than itself. All of the nearly-dozen members work like a fluid form, connected almost telepathically and pouring through the speakers like a musical torrent of water. The sound picture is at once massive and epic, and tinny, subtle and atmospheric. Between sweeping orchestral movements, the band intertwines various tape samples and overdubs which add a certain amount of context to the hazy theme present. The two movements that really sell the album are "Static" and "Sleep", the former with it's unbelievably creepy radio-preacher interlude and painfully drawn-out build, the latter containing some of the most inspired and monumental musical passages this reviewer has ever heard on record. It almost becomes too much to handle; the crawling builds and crescendos overflowing with power and glory and, more than anything, hope. Hope seems to be the theme here, and while anyone could spend vast amounts of time trying to figure out just what the band is trying to say (considering they say nothing in the literal sense), the beauty of it is that almost anyone will take something different from the music. That's the true essense and gift of game that GY!BE owns, and damn near has patented in the realm of post-rock. Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven is absolutely perfect in that it demands a sharp ear while simultaneously rewarding the less-attentive with heavy, crisp and catchy rock.
Rating: 10/10