A Silver Mt. Zion - 13 Blues for 13 Moons

[stevGNR666]

A Silver Mt. Zion - 13 Blues for 13 Moons

When it's thought that A Silver Mt. Zion can't get more fluid, epic or direct than their 2006 release "Horses in the Sky," "13 Blues for 13 Moons" shows a band that can expand their sound while remaining focused. With Efrim Menuck's quivering and protesting vocals delicately jutted in the mix, the scene unfolds in a layer by layer approach that "Godspeed! You Black Emperor" and A Silver Mt. Zion have kept tightening and tightening over the years. As with the last record, Menuck is wailing about the war, and shit is he pissed. Most of these songs are a call, a desperate plea to arms for a generation - like The Sex Pistols meets Bob Dylan - cradled in the arms of a Symphonic undercurrent.

And how epic and cacophonous the current is!

In the beginning, there're 12 tracks of untitled feedback before the band chants "1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound." The instruments kick in with a crunchingly, complicated violin riff that's almost folksy and almost an odd classic/prog rock (which is not apparent in their prior albums). Here, Menuck screeching above "Can't live on their remainders / We'll starve on it for sure / Their way is debt and prisons / They are burning half the world." As with most of ASMZ, the frankness of the lyrics balances out the sheer artistic grandiosity. The second track, the title track "13 Blues for 13 Moons", is one of the most ambitious pieces that the band has ever attempted. First, there's an ambient introduction which builds and builds before cracking underneath its own pressure and is torn down to a simple blues lick. That blues lick repeats and repeats with sporadic screams against the corporate construction - "The hangman's got a hard-on / The pretty minstrells sway / The pundit reeks of coffin / The banker rapes a maid." In "Black Waters Blowed/Engine Broke Blues" the drums holler and bang in a free-jazz like frenzy, the guitars and violins screech and wail without reserve until settling into verse which is tense until the rumblings burst the whole shit storm wide open again and you're swooned into the Black Waters Blowing round and round in hellish pillage. In "Blind Blind Blind," the music is hypnotically melodic and intimately gorgeous until the very end where the band chants "Some! hearts! are! true!" until fade out - a cycle of chants, the album is a cycle of chants.

All in all, my favorite album of this year. Here are some live excerpts. If you want more recommendations, just PM me.