Thee Silver Mt. Zion
Released January 21st, 2014 via
I honestly cannot remember an opening song in recent times that's excited me as much as ‘Fuck Off Get Free (For The Island of Montreal)’. Acoustic guitar riffs and Efrim's vocals going throughout the song and the gorgeous interaction between electric guitar and violin. This is the signal of the return of Efrim Menuck, the Godspeed You! Black Emperor co-founder, with the band Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra after winning this year’s Polaris Music Prize.
Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything is the first new full-length album from Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra (TSMZMO) since 2010’s Kollapse Tradixionales and it will be released next January 21st through the label Constellation Records. The album is also the first effort of the Canadian band as a quintet and offers an exemplary blend of hardcore, garage rock, blues and metal sounds and therefore taking distance from the classic post rock tag that has been always linked to them.
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra (aka A Silver Mt. Zion, Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, etc.) is one of the many side projects from members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, created in 1999 by the Godspeeder Efrim , Sophie and Thierry and the current line-up is composed by Efrim Menuck, David Payant, Jessica Moss, Sophie Trudeau and Thierry Amar.
They come from Montreal, Quebec, and they produce an amazing music that is really unique in its style.
What about the album? In a running time of about 50 minutes, Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything simply takes the listeners on a series of journeys mapped by the interaction of a multitude of instruments arranged from the most simple to most complex musical structures. There's no doubt that the Efrim’s voice is the main standout of their albums and recognizable among hundreds.
The ten-minutes ‘Fuck Off Get Free (For The Island of Montreal)’ opens the album and from the first notes you'll notice the spatial dynamics of blues, folk, rock, jazz, and orchestral music. This track is the statement of the new music style of the quintet. What remains constant is the band commitment to placing emphasis on the politics of authenticity and also through the new album they remark their world of truth with slogans that are chanted with a peculiar intensity.
This happen also with the centerpiece 'Austerity Blues', a 14 minutes song of which these days we can listen to an excerpt. The successful blend between the vocals and the instruments, and in particular the alternation between the vocals and the violin, is the power of this beautiful song that alone could be an EP for the complexity of its structure and the passion that expresses. There are so many changes in sound in it that this song is like a paint made by patches of several paints, each one with it's one dominant tone. Someone could think that the outcome is a mess, but it's not. The outcome is a brilliant composition ending with the lyric “Lord let my son live long enough to see that mountain torn down” sung in all the possible ways. Magic happens at the minute 7. Epic song.
'Take Away These Early Grave Blues' is where they sing the socio-political lyrics so passionately as the dynamics intensify and all the instruments play together in a wall of sound perfectly synchronized till dissolving with the lyric “love each other”. It took me a while before entering into this song mood and now I love it. Bands that deliver a social critique with the courage, the passion and the honesty demonstrated by TSMZMO are very rare and I invite you to listen to carefully this album to really appreciate it.
'Little One Runs' introduces the second part of the album that is unexpectedly and beautifully softer. This song, in particular is a sweet lullaby where the vocals are gently interplayed among the notes. Passing through the intense and passionate 'What We Loved Was Not Enough' – the ending lyrics are touching - it's the turn of 'Rains Thru The Roof At Thee Grande Ballroom (For Capital Steez)' that is a tribute to the late Pro Era rapper Capital Steez who died prematurely at the age of 19 jumping off the rooftop of Cinematic Music Group headquarters in Manhattan last December 2012.
“All I can say is that music is more than just something you can do during the weekend, as a part time gig...it interprets the musician lifestyle, it's what you are, it's how you live, it's the things you do and we'll continue doing it...” Hell, isn't it wonderful?
The closing song of this incredible album starts with the words of Capital Steez and just after that, the drums and the vocals create together an atmosphere so deep that you get goosebumps. It's a great ode that concludes an intense album full of passion and where music and social commitment are combined in a perfect marriage.
Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything requires time to be understood completely and I'm sure that more you'll listen to it, more you'll love it. Maybe this is the most immediate album of the band and for sure is going to be one of the best release of 2014.
