F# A# ∞

The title is said F-sharp, A-sharp, infinity, after the tuning and the locked groove of two droning tones that ends the vinyl. Recorded in May 1997 at Hotel2Tango, it was the first document of Godspeed as a large band. The label printed no titles: the side names, Nervous, Sad, Poor... and Bleak, Uncertain, Beautiful..., are etched in the run-out groove. The first 500 copies came in card jackets with one of three photographs glued on, a train, a water tower or a road sign, and an envelope holding a flattened penny, a blueprint and an early show handbill. Menuck said the band glued the records and flattened the pennies themselves, and that the photographs were chosen to represent a sense of place.

Kranky wanted a CD with wider distribution than Constellation could manage. Rather than reissue the LP as it stood, the band used the extra length to re-edit, remaster and resequence the music with Daryl Smith, adding new material, much of it in Providence, and dropping the loop. The Wire's critics placed it fourth for 1998. Pitchfork gave it 9.3 then and 9.5 in 2020, ranked it 45th of the 1990s, and counted almost 50 pressings of the LP. Danny Boyle said 28 Days Later was heavily inspired by it.