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I suppose someone could easily take issue The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra And Tra-La-La Band. Here's a band that sings about angels wielding molotov cocktails and "strip malls full of cancer". A young girl reads a cryptic manifesto with all of the forced melodrama of a high school drama production. Their song titles read like paranoid rants ("Sister! Brother! Small Boats of Fire Are Falling From The Sky") and cryptic religious passages ("Tho You Are Gone I Still Walk Miles With You"). Or maybe it's just that someone has too much time on their hands and too many WTO protests on their mind. 

But all such speculation is ultimately pointless. Regardless of how pretentious and melodramatic these songs might be, there's no denying that they are, in fact, haunting moments of stunning beauty. And indeed, if there was ever a time for music like this, it's now. Read some articles about terrorism, war, anthrax, and a government (rightly or wrongly) rapidly clamping down on privacy and personal freedom in the name of national security, and you start to wonder if this might not be some of the most relevant music being made right now. 

While Godspeed You Black Emperor! has always been concerned with state of society's decay, Silver Mt. Zion seems doubly so. Perhaps that's because the music feels more intimate and emotional. It rarely reaches the heights that Godspeed attains (though when it does on " C'mon Come On (Loose An Endless Longing)," it assumes Biblical proportions the likes of which haven't been seen since Sodom and Gomorrah). Rather, the music is more subdued; any loud-quiet dynamics are exchanged for slowly building basslines, somber string arrangements, and haunting piano melodies. 

That may seem odd, since the band doubled in size to 6 members for this recording. You might think that explosion in band growth would translate somehow musically, but if anything, the opposite is true. "Born Into Trouble As the Sparks Fly Upward" does feel much fuller than their previous album, but also more thought-out and arranged. This is especially evident on "Could've Moved Mountains..." and "Tho You Are Gone I Still Walk Miles With You." The former builds ever so slowly on a solemn bassline, adding strings, guitars, and organ and eventually conveying the loss and regret the title hints at. The latter is a dark instrumental number in the fine tradition of Rachel's "The Sea and Bells," with the emphasis on foreboding piano chords. But unlike "The Sea and Bells," which often sounds pretty but go nowhere, this piece remains a very evocative and chilling piece. 

But if you want to really find out what Menuck and Co. are all about, you need only listen to "Built Then Burnt (Hurrah! Hurrah!)." At first, the track seems laughable, given that the first 2 minutes or so consist of a young girl reading a manifesto of sorts with all of the gusto of a high school play. And what a manifesto! Addressed to "brothers and sisters, enemies and friends," it contends that "all we need is a little more hope, a little more joy", begs for "words that could've move mountains," and longs to be "tangled up in bright red ribbons" and have a parade. It seems laughable, until a delicate mix of guitars and strings begins to build up underneath. By the time she implores "let's build strange and radiant machines, because Jericho is waiting to fall," you're ready to join the cause and storm the lines. Damn the pepper spray! 

One time, I heard a brilliant sermon that compared society to a sinking ship. That may be a fairly pessimistic outlook, but pastor's point was that we all have a role to play in saving society. We can be like those who help others into the lifeboats, making sure that they can get to safety. Or we can be those who man the pumps, giving others precious seconds to get to safety. We can be those trying to signal for help, calling out into the darkness for any aid that might come our way. Not surprisingly, I think of Silver Mt. Zion as the band that plays while the ship is going down, playing music that reflects the solemnity of the situation we're in, but also states that "hope still waits in the wings." 

I have to chuckle everytime I listen to "The Triumph of Our Tired Eyes." Over gently chiming guitars and the album's most sublime string arrangements, bandleader Efrim Menuck belts out "musicians are cowards" in his pinched, nasal voice. I chuckle because this music feels anything but cowardly. The ship is going down and we have lost our way, and it takes guts to own up to that. And it takes as much courage, to realize, amidst all of the upheaval, that "there is beauty in this land, but I don't often feel it". No, this is definitely not music made by cowards. It's probably some of the bravest music I've heard in a long time. 

Jason Morehead 12/03/2001