Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra – Kollaps Tradixonales

Thee Silver Mt. Zion

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17 February 2010, 07:55 | Written by Sebastian Reynolds

(Albums)

(Thee Silver Mt. Zion)

A storming, giddy pirouette of a record that opens with the elegiac ‘There Is A Light’, a fifteen minute paean to hope in the face of bitter despair. Surging brass lines and Efrim’s vocal lead the charge with a desperate call to arms, and make this a mini symphony all by itself.One of the most continuously engaging facets of Silver Mt. Zion’s work is the endless poetic beauty of Efrim’s lyrics. They are one minute bleak and brutal: “dance you motherfuckers” (‘I Built Myself A Metal Bird’) the next, they’re heart warming tales of hope: “tell me, there is a light” (‘There Is A Light’). Despite seeming to have very definite messages, they never lose that edge of abstraction that would lead to things falling into either crude sloganeering (a pitfall of so many lesser bands with left-wing political leanings) or cod emo saccharine sentimentality. Obviously the vocal delivery ”” screeched hysterics to mournful off key yowls ”” helps mark SMZ out from the plethora of mediocre ‘post rock’ bands cluttering the airwaves. The virtuoso dual violin assault of Jessica Moss and Sophie Trudeau stir up screeching, distorted madness, then move to provide sweeping, keening backdrops to the songs as they unfold. Underpinned by long serving double bassist Thierry Amar and new member of the team, drummer David Payant, the rhythm section keep it tight and fraught, never missing a beat, even in the tricky time signature wanderings, but always allowing plenty of space for the free passages to breathe.The couplet of tracks with the best song titles of the year so far, ‘I Built Myself A Metal Bird’ and ‘I Fed My Metal Bird The Wings Of Other Metal Birds’ certainly ram home a sense of bleak misery that is almost total, but with such graceful energy and spirit it never becomes less than exhilarating. The pretty/ugly trick is something that this band never fail to deliver on. The former of the two starts with a typically urgent thrusting guitar line, set over a 7/4 beat that drags things along in a bitter twisted post waltz time stagger. As the former of the couplet segues into the latter half, things cut back to a free, edgy drone passage that rebuilds over six minutes back to the initial churning coda.The construction of the album defies the ongoing trend for iTunes shuffle prattle, a work clearly constructed to be consumed in its’ entirety. The next movement appears from the titles to be a triplet, all variations on the album title with second titles in brackets. Opening this trio is ‘Kollapz Tradixional (Thee Olde Dirty Flag)’, a mostly percussionless lament for some deep misery, with swaying strings and bitter, hopelessly bleak guitar lines. Followed by the most direct, beautiful one and a half minutes of sad hope one could hope to hear, ‘Collapse Traditional (For Darling)’, strings swell behind gorgeous, off kilter harmonies. Set against the terror and doom of a lot of the album, it’s a much needed respite.The next in the trio, ‘Kollaps Tradicional (Bury 3 Dynamos)’, builds from instrumental atmosphere to epic protest rallying call of Efrim’s multilayered vocals intertwining to stunning effect around yet more poetically fractious imagery such as:Â “Ball of fire burning ball of light”, “Gave my right hand right hand to that long thin man”.It then settles on the call of:Â “Gonna bury three dynamos where the trees where the trees where the trees don’t grow”.Underpinned by Efrim’s signature low end guitar drone and distorted gypsy folk lines from the violinists, this is a heart stopping musical moment. Zeppelin meets Klezmer hoe down.Kollaps Tradixionales sounds very much like a live band powering through long honed pieces, along the lines of the previous record, 13 Blues For Thirteen Moons. It excites me to think that SMZ will one day return to the sound world tape constructions of earlier records such as Born Into Trouble As The Sparks Flew Upwards or the Pretty Lightening Paw EP, but dirge anthem and album closer ‘’Piphany Rambler’ makes a strong case for SMZ to continue jamming live in the studio. As majestic and urgently bleak as anything they’ve put together, it’s a sad lonely stumble to the end. And worth every step.