Before I wrap up writing about music for a while, I thought I'd pump out a quick summary post of the countdown, mostly because I like charts.
Countdown Songs by Year of Release
As I said in the beginning of the countdown, the songs would tend to skew towards newer music since I am indeed a young person that has listened primarily to music from the past 25 years. The oldest song was "White Rabbit" from 1967, and the newest song was 2010's "Lisbon," which beat "Sprawl 2" by just a couple of weeks. One fun note (well, I think it's fun at least) is that the top nine songs all come from the middle three groups.
Countdown Songs by Country of Origin
Much like the last section, since I am from the US, much of the music on the list comes from the US. Canada made a good effort to keep up, but they don't have the breadth nor the depth to overtake the sheer volume of music coming from the states. Everything else from outside the continent came from various European islands, which suggests that I could probably stand to expand my reach a little. Maybe when I revisit this in a decade or so, I'll have some Boris or something like that on the list.
Countdown Songs by Length
This graph shows that a) I do indeed like long songs, and b) you can make any bar graph flat if you choose the right groupings. In all seriousness, these are the groupings I chose first, so I do think it shows the balance and variety of song lengths that showed up in my countdown. The average song length checked in at 7:50, which means it would take you over two and a half hours to listen to the entirety of the countdown. Fun fact: The two oldest songs on my countdown also happened to be the shortest ("White Rabbit") and the longest ("Dogs").
What I've Been Listening To in the Last 15 Months
I started this countdown in March of 2012, which means that I chose the songs for the countdown then. I've moved a couple of the songs up and down a spot or two in that time, but the overall contents have stayed the same. This means that everything I've discovered in the last 15 months isn't on the list. I'm not sure how many of these songs would actually make the list, but here's some things I've taken a liking to recently, in rough order of how much I like them. I'll provide just two-to-three sentence blurbs since I've written enough about music already
I See a Darkness - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Johnny Cash sure picked some great songs to cover, didn't he? Will Oldham's masterpiece album is great throughout, but the title track is the crown jewel.
The Everyday World of Bodies - Rodan
Rodan evokes the sound of Slint with a slightly harder edge to it. This makes sense, since both bands are from the Louisville area and came about around the same time. Sadly, I only discovered Rodan upon learning that founding member Jason Noble had died of cancer.
Only Tomorrow - My Bloody Valentine
MBV's return from a 22-year absence could have been disappointing, but luckily it was not. Some of the later tracks on their self-titled effort successfully reached into new areas for the band, but earlier tracks like "Only Tomorrow" play to the absolute strengths of the band in a fantastic way.
Lloyd's Register - Rachel's
Another band featuring the deceased Jason Noble, Rachel's is a far calmer outfit, featuring contributions from a wide range of performers. "Lloyd's Register" is a great example of the band's versatility, weaving back and forth between serenity and chaos with aplomb.
Katy Song - Red House Painters
I got into the "slowcore" movement not long after starting the list. "Katy Song" is perhaps one of the best examples of what this type of music could do. Mark Kozelek and friends show that the combination of precision and execution could still all the right emotional notes.
Cave In - Codeine
Codeine on the other hand, gives us the opposite end of "slowcore," which is much louder and sludgier but still just as beautiful. "Cave In" is probably their most famous song, but you can't go wrong with almost any other song in their catalogue, as they were able to consistently hone and perfect their sound.
Tragedy of the Mind - Survival
I literally just started listening to Survival a couple of weeks ago, but I am already hooked. The first track is probably the one that stands out the most now, but I'm sure this will change over time.
The first few posts of my countdown featured songs that, by happy accident, shared a common link. The top two on my list have probably the best connection of all. I'm not going to tell you what it is up front though, mostly because I am mean.
#2: Good Morning Captain - Slint
I could probably try to write some sort of grand piece tying together all of the reasons I like Slint's most famous song. However, I think it'll be easier to just list out all of the reasons and go from there. In no particular order:
1. It's probably the closest thing to a starting point of post-rock
As you may have noticed, a lot of the songs on this list fall under the large umbrella that is post-rock. Because of the wide range of sounds and styles classified as such, the designation of post-rock can often be a bit of a diagnosis of exclusion. That is, when the typical characteristics of rock are omitted, a band is usually considered post-rock. If we are to accept this as the general definition of the genre, then it seems ludicrous to say that a record from the early nineties was the beginning of the movement, as many, many rock musicians had been doing far more unconventional things for decades.
All that said, I still like to think of Slint as the forefathers of what we know as post-rock. It may not be evident at first listen, but many of the divergent bands that came to exist after Slint share at least part of what made Slint great. Godspeed You Black Emperor features a much more polished orchestration, but they build to swelling crescendos in much the same way. Tortoise is a much jazz-influenced ensemble, but they rely on many of the same odd rhythms and time signatures (of course, they also share a guitarist with Slint, too*). In my favorite connection, the #1 song described later in the post was originally titled "Slint" in a tribute to the band. As unassuming as Spiderland is, it set an example that many would go on to follow.
* David Pajo's career has been pretty fascinating. Not many can say they've been in as wide of a variety of bands as Slint, Tortoise, and Zwan.
2. It touches on one of the fundamental themes of music: Isolation
I've been developing a theory for a while now where there are ultimately two fundamental themes in art: togetherness and isolation. While these themes can obviously apply to the direct message of music itself, this dichotomy also works on another level: How one listens to music. Some music is meant to be enjoyed out loud in large crowds. Other music works best late at night with headphones. In both of these aspects, "Good Morning Captain" swings largely towards the isolation end of the spectrum. Not only does the allegory of The Captain lead beautifully into a naked scream of regret and solitude, but the subtle production of the song (static at the beginning, below the radar lyrics) suggest a removed optimal listening environment. Earlier in the series, I mentioned that Tool's "H." was my #1 in a previous countdown largely because of its ability to communicate this feeling well. "Good Morning Captain" passed that song on this newest incarnation of the list in part because of its ability to more fully embody isolationism.
3. It builds tension unlike (almost) any other song
There is great joy in being surprised by what is coming next in a song. Bands that can turn on a dime (Secret Chiefs 3 or Tortoise come to mind) keep the listeners attention like few others can. On the other hand, knowing what's coming can be great as well. Most quality big hits (like "Rolling in the Deep" or "Umbrella") stay close to the vest, but are still thrilling because of their perfect execution and keen eye for songwriting.
Songs that master either end of this spectrum can be fantastic, but the very best music generally strives for a balance between the two. "Good Morning Captain" follows a rather straightforward path through most of the song, but an existential sense of doom lurks underneath the story of The Captain. This balance creates a sense of tension, which is released perfectly with the wail of the closing section. Slint's other great song "Washer" also exhibits a fantastic ability to build tension (the false climax two-thirds of the way through is great), and features perhaps an even more cathartic release at the end. "Good Morning Captain," and all of Spiderland for that matter, is an important step in the history of rock music. But the main reason the song is so high on this list is because it is simply a great piece of music that uses the tools at its disposal for maximum effect.
#1: Like Herod - Mogwai
More than any other song, "Like Herod" speaks to what I like about music. It is loud, but it sets that up well with near-extreme silence. It takes its time going about its business, but still manages to accomplish a lot. It builds tension quite well, but also settles into a few predictable patterns (which help to make the surprising sections all the more surprising). It seems inaccessible at first, but then hooks you in with multiple listens. Finally, no song has snuck its way into my brain as often or in as many different ways as this one has.
"Like Herod" is not as obviously great nor as widely celebrated as many of other songs on my list, but I would argue that that is by design. Other songs from the same album (Mogwai Young Team) such as "Yes I am a Long Way from Home" or "Mogwai Fear Satan" tend more towards the chords and crescendos that tend to gain recognition. "Like Herod" is much more of the id of Mogwai's output in that it strips away most of the melody and progressions that most music espouses in favor of brutal transitions from uneasy quiet to the punishing "chorus." While one can view this as simply a great song, I think of it as much more than that. I view "Like Herod" as Mogwai's signal to the world (it's the second song on their first album) that music is more than that the boxes that we try to put it in. Considering just this song, (not even mentioning the rest of Mogwai's diverse output) the band shows just how unique and powerful a single piece can be. "Like Herod" is probably not the greatest song ever written, but it is great, and it helps to show just how wide and wonderful the world of music can be. Because of this, it's #1 on my list.
After spending a whole post on Isis, I have reached the top four. What is different between recent entries and the top four is that I probably wouldn't count any of these bands among my top 10 or so. Now I really like all of these bands, and I own multiples albums by almost all of them, but none of them reached that level of sustained greatness, at least in my own eyes (#4 is close, but a 22-year hiatus makes it tough for me to think of them as a favorite band).
#4 Sometimes - My Bloody Valentine
The music website Pitchfork is often maligned for being elitist and pedantic. I agree with these assertions in that it sometimes seem like some bands are disliked just to be "cool." Thus, Pitchfork is generally at its best when it celebrates that which it loves the most. The yearly and decade-ly countdowns of the best music are some of the most valuable and yet concise summaries about the subject anywhere. One such piece that I have discovered a lot of music through is the countdown of the top 100 albums of the 1990s. That article is as good of a guide through a great decade of music as you will find anywhere.*
*To build suspense, the top two songs on this list come from albums on the list.
Of course, just because I like the list doesn't mean that I don't have a few disagreements. The most notable difference between my views and Pitchfork's happen to come at the very top of the list. My Bloody Valentine's magnum opus Loveless comes in at #2 behind Radiohead's OK Computer. While I really like OK Computer, I don't consider it Radiohead's best work, and I certainly don't like it as much as Loveless. However, the mere ordering of these two records doesn't really bother me as much as the comments made about the difference. In the blurb accompanying the #1 album, Pitchfork basically says that its #2 album isn't all that good:
"Loveless, a masterpiece of form and noise, impresses the brain like stylized photography. Surely, it is breathtaking. It provides the senses with a romantic, heightened ideal of music, experienced through an unbreakable medium. The sound overwhelms to such an extent that multiple listens are unnecessary and taxing. OK Computer, in contrast, sounds crystalline and livable-- a true, enterable aural landscape packaged with press-delivered mythology describing its creation."
This line of thinking is could be a case of the writer being a little full of himself, but I also think there is a fundamental difference of opinion between us that goes beyond fancy-pants writing (Since I have fairly different musical tastes from most of my friends, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the reasons for these differences, so I am pretty good at figuring this out at this point). Whereas many of the Pitchfork writers put heavy weighting into where a piece of music fits within culture as a whole, I am more likely to judge a work solely on its own merits. Thus, when Pitchfork ranks OK Computer #1 in part because it is seen as "the last great album," they are looking from more of a historian's viewpoint. Given that I don't share the same thinking about music, I would disagree with them. However, I do see the value in such a viewpoint. In fact, given that Pitchfork is a large collective of multiple writers with a large following, I would expect them to espouse more of a macro view of that which they write about. All that said, I still think Loveless is the best record of the 90's both because it is great and I haven't heard anything else quite like it.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot the song itself: "Sometimes" is a really good song (and covers of it are also really good). It's so good that I wanted it to be Ad and my's first dance song at our wedding. But, she made the sort of valid point that it isn't very danceable, and we compromised on a wonderful Neutral Milk Hotel song. I guess it all worked out.
#3 Untitled VIII - Sigur Ros
In a previous post, I made the case for music without lyrics. At the same time, I have populated the majority of my list with songs with lyrics. The #3 song on my list introduces the rare third category: music with "lyrics."
The majority of Sigur Ros work features vocals sung in Icelandic (they have also dabbled in English recently). Their third album () is a notable outlier in that all of the vocals are sung in a made-up language which the band calls "Hopelandic." This undecipherable tongue can be viewed primarily in one of two ways. One way is to truly think of Hopelandic as a well thought out language that has some specific meaning that only the band knows. Two, given the context (the blank name of the album, untitled songs, and nearly empty album art) one could understand Hopelandic as the band simply using vocals as another instrument.
As you might guess, I very much agree with the second line of thinking. I see Sigur Ros' disposal of a discernible message to be a commentary on how specific language can be unnecessary when trying to communicate an emotion. As "Untitled VIII" might be the most soaring and emotional song I've ever heard, this seems to fit well. "Untitled VIII" works not just because of the odd vocals and the bombastic guitar work, but also because of how well crafted the song is. The first section is beautiful but timid. This sets up the gradual build of the second part perfectly. And of course, the ending is just the bees knees. In all, Sigur Ros managed to write one of the best songs about hope and love ever without ever mentioning them explicitly; that makes this song worthy of #3.
As I enter the top five, I have finally reached my favorite band of all time. Isis may have called it quits a couple of years ago, but they left behind a great catalogue of music that I will listen to for as long as I can hear. Choosing just one song was incredibly tough, so as you will see I cheated a bit. But for official purposes, the #5 song just happens to be the first one I ever heard from the band.
#5: So Did We - Isis
I started writing this post with the "Runners-up" section, as I usually do for this series (It's the easiest part to write, so I like to get it done first). I soon realized that it was getting a little out of control, so I decided to repurpose that section and do a countdown within the countdown of my favorite Isis songs. Instead of writing a general blurb about each one, I'll try to focus on one aspect of each song that goes to show why Isis is my favorite band.
#10 - Poison Eggs - Mosquito Control EP
Aspect: Loud
Early-period Isis is loud. Very loud. There is no getting around the wall of noise, whether it comes from this song, or from their next EP The Red Sea, or even their first LP, Celestial. Not every song from this period works, and not every album has the same production quality as their later work. However, there is a rawness and a power at the forefront of their early work that would go on to provide the backbone of the rest of their career.
#9 - The Other - Oceanic
Aspect: Loud and Soft
While Isis reduced their overall intensity as they aged, they still were able turn up the volume on occasion, as they did in "The Other." The key difference, and indeed the difference that elevated them from good band to great band, was that the loudness was more focused. Instead of blasting their way through almost every song, the Isis of the 2000s found ways to play their louder sections off of their quieter movements for maximum effect.
#8 - Celestial (The Tower) - Celestial
Aspect: Shiftiness
Where "The Other" displays a pretty stark contrast between loud and soft, "Celestial" shows Isis' ability to be a little more subtle than that. "Celestial" is probably Isis' first truly great song. It achieves this status by starting off with the intensity of their earliest work and then taking it to a whole new place with the reserved bridge leading towards the ending. The ending is as intense as their previous albums but in a completely different, much more aural way that would signal that the best was yet to come.
#7 - Backlit - Panopticon
Aspect: Themes
Many great bands write terrific songs that perfectly encapsulate some of the most important themes of our times. The best bands are able to go a step beyond this by carrying these themes across an album or even an entire career. Isis has often fallen back on their water and tower motifs, but they have also involved some more specific references. Panopticon is largely about Jeremy Bentham's contraption that allows one to watch over all of their subjects at once without being seen (as you might guess the most common application of this is prison). Backlit is the song that seems to be most directly about this ("Thousands of eyes, gaze never ceases"). Efforts like this can come off as too academic and/or stuffy in lesser hands, but Isis is able to incorporate it with aplomb.
#6 - Weight - Oceanic
Aspect: Patience
Part of the challenge of mastering the loud/soft dynamic is pacing. If you alternate between the two too rapidly, then you run the risk of minimizing the impact of the loud sections. Conversely, too much buildup can lead to lengthy sections of music that serve no purpose than to set up others. Isis generally manages a good balance, but there is probably no better example of their ability to slowly and effectively build a song like "Weight." There's nothing musically complex about the song, so the gradual build to the conclusion is everything, and Isis does it as well as anyone. Fun fact: this song appeared in the penultimate episode of season one of Friday Night Lights during the mud football game sequence.
#5 - Threshold of Transformation - Wavering Radiant
Aspect: Chilling
As a whole, "Threshold of Transformation" is probably not Isis' fifth-best song. The first five-odd minutes lack focus and jump from section to section without much cohesiveness. However, I tend to forget about the first part when I get to the stunning back half of the song (which would also turn out to be the end of their final studio album). The slow buildup to the end is simple yet powerful, perfectly encapsulating the sorrow of the song. The cherry on top is the how the last minute pulls the rug out from under the listener. After 8 minutes of mostly loudness, a single guitar line with only deep ambient noises in the background finishes the song as beautifully as any. Isis wasn't quite as great near the end, but they found a fantastic way to go out on top.
#4 - Carry - Oceanic
Aspect: Songwriting
Isis was always terrific at all of the "micro" aspects of making music. The layering of the guitars was always handled fantastically, and Aaron Harris' often off-beat work on the drums was fabulously creative and minimal. What tied all of that together was probably their greatest strength: Their ability to form great songs from all of these ingredients. This track from Oceanic might be the best example of this. "Carry" is relatively compact (six minutes is on the low end of Isis song lengths), but is still able to run the full gamut from a quiet beginning to a brooding middle to a pounding finale.
#3 - Garden of Light - In the Absence of Truth
Aspect: Power
Given its amazing climax, it's tempting to name "Threshold of Transformation" as my favorite Isis album ender. That said, "Garden of Light" is a more complete song and thus, gets the nod from me. While the final part is transcendent*, the best part of the song is middle, where Isis runs through the same chord progression three times, ramping up the intensity each time. There may be other Isis songs that are louder, but no section is more powerful than that one. This was a song that Isis would not often play live, which seems to reflect the difficulty in bringing that level of intensity every night.
*that ending might be the second or third best example of building and releasing tension** that I can think of, mostly because of how you wait and wait for the main theme to repeat and then it finally does at the end. **stay tuned for #1 in a later post
#2 - The Beginning and The End - Oceanic
Aspect: Command
In baseball, you'll often hear the terms "control" and "command" when scouts talk about pitchers. Control is typically used to say that the pitcher has the ability to throw strikes consistently. Command, on the other hand, says that pitchers have the ability to hit the precise spots they are aiming for. I originally had control written as the key aspect about this song, but I soon realized that wasn't enough. This is probably the most precise and well put together song that Isis ever wrote. What's more is that it is the first track off of the first album of what I would consider their "modern" period - the period in which the term post-metal was coined to describe among others Isis. I can't even imagine the experience of being a metal fan in 2002, putting in this CD* for the first time, and being blown away.
*Yes, people did that then
#1 - So Did We - Panopticon
Aspect: Beauty
From an academic perspective, "The Beginning and The End" is probably Isis' finest work. However, since this exercise is clearly not academic, I am choosing "So Did We" as the top Isis song. The main difference between these two songs for me is the ending. While "The Beginning and The End" goes out on a very strong note, "So Did We" goes to a new level in combining the efforts of all five musicians. I've seen what Isis does referred to as a "wall of noise" a few places, and this is probably the best example of that. The closing section sums up the feelings of isolation and separation better than any words could.
Judging by the amount of effort it took for me to sort out the top seven songs on my list, I would say that this point marks the transition to the very top of my list. Much like the pairings from the first posts in this countdown, these songs share a major trait: Neither of the bands sing a single lyric (although there is a voiceover in one of the songs). It is perhaps ironic then (or is it coincidental) that this post took be forever to put to words.
#7: Dead Flag Blues - Godspeed You! Black Emperor
#6: Memorial - Explosions in the Sky
Because we live within 12 hours of most of the people and places we know, the wife and I find ourselves on a lot of long car rides together. Even though we are married and (presumably) like each other, we often run out of things to say within the first hour of the trip. Thus, I have taken to coming up with hopefully interesting topics of discussion beforehand.* One of my best ideas was to create a giant playlist of songs from my library, and then get feedback from Adrienne. I knew very well that she loved some of the more mainstream bands that I play, such as Wilco or Arcade Fire, but I wasn't really sure about some of the more obscure acts, like Secret Chiefs 3 or Pelican.
*I know I'll be a natural father one day, because this is such a dad thing to do.
Overall, this exercise went about as I thought it would go. Ad liked most of the songs I thought she would like, and didn't like the ones I thought she wouldn't. Even though there weren't many surprises, I still learned one thing about her taste in music that I didn't know before: She didn't really care for songs without lyrics. Now, this isn't to say that she hates pieces like the above songs, but she did tell me that she can't bring herself to care about them as much as other works.
If you've been reading this series, then you'll know that I feel pretty much the opposite way. Many of my favorite bands employ few or no lyrics, and I often think that one of the main failures of popular music is an over-reliance on catchy vocals to make up for a lack of creative musical composition. Judging by what I hear on the radio, it's clear that not everyone would agree with me. Because Adrienne was one of those who would disagree, and since she was trapped in a car with me for several more hours, I figured I would get to the bottom of our difference of opinions. After a brief back and forth about the merits of such music, I found the two key aspects of wordless music that Adrienne didn't prefer. I summarized these arguments into two premises, which I will now refute in print, because that's what marriage is about.
1. Music without singing feels less human
This is probably the harder of the two points to refute. There is little doubt that a powerful voice can resonate with the listener, perhaps to a larger degree than any other aspect of music. The best example that comes to mind is Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," but given time, I could probably list another thousand songs where the particulars of a singer's voice lends itself well to the message and feeling of a song. I agree wholeheartedly that a strong and well-used voice can be critical to the success of a piece of music.
What I don't necessarily agree with is the converse of this: that the absence of singing makes something feel more mechanical and cold. What I think we lose when we listen to the majority of our music in non-live situations is the connection between the player and his or her instrument. When listening to the radio, I imagine that we often subconsciously think of guitars and drums as autonomous beings that play the notes we hear. As someone with roughly 10 years of music lessons on multiple instruments, I know the amount of talent it takes to play music professionally.* I also know how hard it can be to go from simply playing the notes in a song to really making them come alive. Vocals may be the aspect of music that is most obviously human, but I would conclude that every other instrument can be just as expressive of the artist's intent. A well played guitar line can accomplish just as much as great vocals, even if we're sort of taking it for granted.
*Meaning that those who taught me were orders of magnitude better than me. And I wasn't bad. It was really something to watch my instructors play.
2. It is harder to tell what the song is about, and thus harder to connect with the themes
This point brings up a larger point: How much does (or should) the meaning of the song (or the meaning the artist intended) matter to the experience of the listener? However, that is a much larger debate than I care for taking on in this post, so I will skip over it...for now.
Lyrics can be both amazingly expressive and rather imposing. Great lyrics can weave beautifully compact tales, but they can also restrict the listener to think about a single theme when the music behind the song could actually be more meaningful on its own. Some of my favorite bands (such as Radiohead and the Deftones) do a great job existing halfway in between these two extremes by using vague lyrics that focus more on imagery and scenery than specific action.* This allows the listener more freedom to imagine the place in which the song exists and then make their own connections between the words and their experiences and associations with them. This way of thinking is not unlike the "show, don't tell" mantra used in writing books and movies. To borrow from John Cage, music is "a way of waking up to the very life we're living," and what better way to enable this than to allow the listener to engage the work and fill in the blanks themselves.
*Using one of those bands as an example, the lyric "Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon" sells the feeling of regret and confusion better than a more direct approach.
Songs without lyrics take this idea one step further, by relying only on the non-vocal music to communicate their message. I would argue that when this is done right, it can be just as expressive (if not more expressive) than music with lyrics. In the case of "The Dead Flag Blues", we are treated to an apocalyptic narration which certainly helps create the mood. However, by the time GYBE begins the section of the piece called "The Cowboy,"* the wistful sadness of the vaguely western-sounding guitar lines invokes a feeling of emptiness that I don't think lyrics could do justice. The cowboy in the title has come to round up his herd, but his herd (or perhaps society, depending on your reading of the gloomy beginning) have broken away, leaving him with nothing.
*For their first couple of albums, GYBE would do us fans the favor of splitting their behemoth compositions into movements. For me at least, this helped clarify their intentions.
Similarly, Explosions in the Sky were able to take a particular feeling (remembrance of things or people that are gone), and turn it into their most focused and powerful work. Unlike with GYBE, we don't get any words, nor detailed titles for the sections of the piece. The song is so well executed though, that we don't need our hand held to understand their message. In the context of the album, "Memorial" completes the arc that begins with "First Breath After Coma" with maximum affect. The tone of their guitars perfectly encapsulate the nostalgia of looking back, while the loud-soft dynamic near the end is as bombastic and full of life as it should be. For me at least, it's hard to listen to those final notes and not feel what they want the listener to feel. At the same time thought, there is nothing in the song that prevents you from tying the feelings that stem from this song to one's own feelings. I think this makes for a richer and more personal experience, when it's done as well as these two songs.
Runners-up:
I could probably carry on for a while about my other favorite GYBE songs, so I will. "East Hastings" accompanies "Dead Flag Blues" on F#A#∞ and is often considered to be their best song because of the amazing crescendo to the climax. If you're familar with the Danny Boyle film 28 Days Later, then you might recognize it from the opening sequence. Boyle always knows how to use modern music well ("Paper Planes" in Slumdog Millionaire, Sigur Ros' "Festival" at the end of 127 Hours), but this is probably my favorite of his choices. Nothing screams "apocalyptic wasteland" better than GYBE's early work.
GYBE's massive two-disc effort Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven is probably a little overstuffed, but it is also their most uplifting and dynamic record. "Storm" is the best example of this, but my favorite track from the album is "Sleep," which transitions from the sad monologue of an old man, to a wailing middle to a celebratory climax. I wrote a short story based on this song in college that actually got published in the English department's student publication, so I guess I have a bit of a special connection to this one.
Finally, last year's Alleluia! Don't Bend, Ascend! featured an amazing opening song in "Mladic." In particular, the first five minutes are an amazing combination of droning guitars, high-pitched screeches, and samples that communicate a sense of dread that turns into unbridled anger.
Explosions in the Sky on the other hand doesn't have quite as deep of a bench of truly great songs. The only other one I would mention in the same breath as "Memorial" is "Yasmin the Light," mainly because it is able to capture the feeling of falling in love unlike any other song I have ever heard. I guess that's a pretty good accomplishment.
