Chroniques et points de vue:

Un incontournable québécois:
C'est loin des projecteurs que Godspeed You Black Emperor ! a concocté Lift Your Skinny Fists…, un impressionnant enregistrement post-rock qui a voyagé discrètement mais sûrement autour du globe. 0n y trouve un travail des atmosphères qui séduit autant qu'il commotionne.

From :
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. lt 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

Amazon.ca:
Godspeed You Black Emperor! récidive avec son rock instrumental somptueux et ses paysages musicaux enveloppants dans sa troisième production, Levez vos skinny fists comme antennas to heaven!. Le collectif montréalais – deux batteries, deux basses, trois guitares, un violon et un violoncelle – livre ici un disque double où l'expérimentation sonore, parfois proche du bruitage, se fait plus présente, l'orchestration encore plus riche, la charge émotive toujours puissante.

Les quatre morceaux, d'une vingtaine de minutes chacun, sont divisés en sections qui s'enchaînent à la manière des mouvements d'une symphonie. À partir d'un motif répété en sourdine, Godspeed échafaude de lancinants crescendos, qui aspirent inéluctablement l'auditeur dans des tourbillons de guitares bourdonnantes et de percussions appuyées. La tempête finit par s'apaiser, mais la quiétude cède bientôt le pas à l'intervention lyrique des cordes, à l'irruption solennelle des cuivres, à l'orage affolant des guitares.

Les compositions quasi filmiques du groupe incorporent des voix, captées hors du studio, qui donnent à l'ensemble un incroyable pouvoir d'évocation. lci, un vieil homme se remémore le paradis de sa jeunesse, Coney lsland ; là, un duo de glockenspiel débouche sur des comptines d'enfants, comme autant d'hommages à l'innocence dans un monde en décrépitude. Une sorte d'espérance obstinée, de foi enragée, affleure, malgré les ambiances angoissantes qui baignent l'album. Levez vos skinny fists comme antennas to heaven! est une bouleversante invitation au rêve et au cauchemar de la part d'un groupe qui échappe aux comparaisons. --Noémi Mercier









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Note: - pop trash
if you want a cd with a bunch of meaningless bubblegum lyrics set to dull generic techno beats and radio friendly hooks, then this is the album for you! the lead singer is nothing more than another britney spears clone, and i was not impressed with the guest appearances by 98 degrees and leean rimes. if you want to hear some real music, i suggest you run (not walk) to the record store and pick up creed's human clay.

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Note: - a dark wind blows
Put simply, Godspeed You Black Emperor is a rock orchestra. Hailing from Canada, this nontet features a cellist, a few violinists, a couple guitarists, two drummers, and a tape deck. It's almost impossible to specify how many of each instrument there are since the band only uses first names and they don't mention who plays what on the album. There was the addition of two trumpetters for this album though.

On Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven, Godspeed gets full use out of their orchestra, letting the ideas run wild. If you know anything about the band, you know for sure that they specialize in doomsday music, ominous, terrifying landscapes of the end time. Just listen to the first two minutes of f#9#infinity for proof. For the first disc here, they more or less stick with that idea. The music of Godspeed is cyclic. It mostly rises in falls in cycles that last 7 or 8 minutes. The first crescendo is reached in the first six minutes of "Storm," in a section called "Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven..." It starts simply enough with an easily strummed guitar and a few muted trumpets, the volume slowly rising. Then the addition of a xylophone adds it's opinion. So far it just sounds like people sitting around a campfire doing a slow jam. With the addition of a cello and a violin it finally starts to sound like it's going somewhere. They play nothing complicated, just the same melodies over and over, maybe it will get somewhere, maybe not. Then a strong drumbeat snaps all the intruments into order. The song becomes a march, with all the instruments adding their part, nothing coming to the forfront, just everything adding to the collective march. It's amazing, gripping, and probably the best thing I've heard all of 2000. It makes me proud to be human.

The collective of Godspeed are true craftsmen. They treat their tapes like marble that they carve into magnificent sculptures of sound, each instrument working on a different part. Godspeed You Black Emperor, with all of their political motives, doomsday themes, f-all attitude, and long drawn-out symphonies, may be the most pretenious band in rock today. But maybe they have to be. To make such gripping, engaging music, maybe they have to have egos as big as the music sounds.

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Note: - * Some Great Stuff, but... ...
This CD contains 2 discs, each with 2 songs timing in around 20 minutes. Each of the songs contain about 7-12 minutes of excellent 5 star music. Each contain about 1-4 minutes of OK 3 star music. Some parts of the album go for about 4 or 5 where you can't even here anything. One song rattles on and on about Coney Island. Some of it, is just a noise. Get rid of the silence and the just a noise, this would be a 5 star review. Some say that the silence is necessary...if I wanted silence I wouldn't turned my stereo on in the first place.

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Note: - Mental note: Canada more interesting than I thought
Huh. This is the first album I've heard of GYBE, after listening to praise them like the second coming, and I somehow thought the real thing would pale in comparison. Wrong. I found it strangely engrossing, undeniably compelling. It's not quite what I'm used to, what with no proper vocals and twenty-minute tracks, but it's all extremely interesting without being too cerebral to enjoy. The spoken samples are cleverly used and are sometimes extremely creepy (the preacher). The album begs to be listened to in one long stretch; when you do, it pulls you into a dark landscape of sound that seems to stay with you after the last notes have died off. It's not a perfect album, but it's perfectly wonderful.

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Note: - * I. love. this. CD. ...
Two disks, four songs. Can you get any better? I ordered this simply because of the glowing reviews it received, which says something right there. I had no idea what to expect. I put it in my CD player and was blown away. Is it classical? Is it rock? Is it pretencious? Yes, but I love it to death. My favorite part is Disk 1, song two, about four minutes into the song, when the evangical minister starts ranting about God knows what (Or does he? "...And when you see the face of God, you will die. There will be nothing left of you except the God-man, the God-woman, the heavenly man, the heavenly woman, the heavenly child!"). It is so scary and sooooooo good.