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58 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I wish I'd had this when my cat died., January 24, 2003
Yep, the title is a mouthful. Even the abbreviation HHLUABSOLSGTCOOR is a monster...The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-la-la Band would probably be called a side-project of Godspeed You Black Emperor!. Down from a nine-piece rock orchestra to just three people, GYBE!'s lavish soundscapes are stripped down to the mere basics of piano, violin, and contrabass. Even with the occasional addition of some guitar, drumming, vocals (yes, vocals), radio samples, and clarinet, A Silver Mt. Zion relegates its music to sparse, oppressively sad passages that bleed silent anguish. Compared to the ominous symphonies of GYBE! (whom you probably like if you're checking this out), this music is less foreboding and dark. Instead, it is just sad, like a weight on the soul. Depressing music is often the most beautiful to me, because it functions as an emotional release. This album is beautiful, but it is a distressed beauty that is difficult to listen to sometimes. And what's it all about? The album is an aching dirge for a dead dog named Wanda. So, you get 47-minutes of long, dreary motivic passages dedicated a dead pet. A tough sell to most people, certainly, and I don't doubt that it in the hands of lesser writing talent something like this would be quite awful. But it is far from any such denigrating adjective. I rank this up with some of the most beautiful music I have. "Broken chords can sing a little" opens the album with simple and unsettling piano chords and a subtle electronic hum. A crying violin glides into the atmosphere as two strange vocal samples appear in stereo. This sets the tone for the album -- barren, sheer requiems based mostly on piano and violin with some odd tape effects appearing in the background (the whale-like mantra appearing between slow swipes of violin on "For Wanda" makes me shake). "Sit in the middle of three galloping dogs" is slightly more robust, arranging jarring violin strikes against marching drums in a way both disconcerting and weeping. "Movie (never made)" has Efrim actually singing, his voice breaking apart over a simple piano melody, and the band sounds like they are playing in some abandoned cathedral. "13 angels standing guard 'round the side of your bed" is a teary mist of sorrow, pure heart-crushing sadness with sonics that can only be described as profound. The interesting thing is that it doesn't sound like the music is trying to make anyone sad -- it is just unqualified expression. I wouldn't listen to this if I was ever close to suicide, but for those times when you want something gorgeously melancholy, I can't think of anything better.
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A beautiful musical treatise on grief, January 30, 2001
For the most part, I am quite wary of artists whose entire careers are lengthy treatises on a single emotion like melancholy or depression. Consequently, my respect for artists like Chan Marshall and Mark Kozelek runs about as deep as my conviction sometimes that they need to both be banished to that Harmony Hut from Addams Family Values for a week or so. So when I first discovered that a few members of Godspeed You Black Emperor! had constructed a side project whose new album was dedicated to guitarist Efrim's late dog Wanda, well, you can understand my skepticism. Rest assured, however, that the result, A Silver Mt. Zion's He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace The Corners of Our Rooms, succeeds wonderfully in what is has set out to accomplish. An almost skeletal album, He Has Left Us Alone... employs little more than piano and violin to create some of the most beautifully bare instrumental pieces I've recently heard. Godspeed minus the bombast and about two-thirds of its members would be a good approximation, but it would miss out on the album's focused sense of grief. Godspeed You Black Emperor paints epic landscapes of sound; this is a musical still life of sadness. Of the album's eight movements (which make up two larger pieces), "13 Angels Standing Guard Round The Side of Your Bed" is probably the highlight here. For a bunch of avant noodling with tape loops and violins, this is gorgeous stuff. Also of note is "Movie (Never Made)," a song for piano featuring Efrim on vocals, his voice breaking all over the notes. And even the exercise in descending scales (a Godspeed trademark), presented here in the form of "Stumble And Rise On Some Awkward Morning," is a remarkably moving piece. Of course, the album is only strengthened by its abandoned church-like production, which uses echoes to invoke the perfect environment for these songs. He Has Left Us Alone... may not be an essential purchase for everyone - it's too much of a one-note affair - but it's certainly not just for Godspeed completists. A beautiful, almost ambient expression of pure sorrow, this the perfect album for those who think Godspeed You Black Emperor! would be great if it weren't for all those damn crescendos.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sad, Empty, Erie..., July 11, 2003
Silver Mount Zion is comprised of three members of GYBE, for a much more empty feeling. Empty, empty empty, is the adjective that I think of mostly when this is playing. The main instruments are violin, piano, drums and contrabass, along with a few vocals and guitar. The band creates a sparse, vast sound and is some of the most depressing stuff I've ever heard, in a beautiful way, of course. And, once again, a band that makes CD titles and song titles this outrageous has got to be good. The album starts off with a few lonely piano chords and slowly evolves into a song containing piano and violin, and distant, faded vocal radio clips, and staticy, overlapping voices like a radio is picking up severeal different news stations but for some reason they are talking about the same thing. That leads into "Sit in the Middle of Three Galloping Dogs," a nice song with a violin loop. It's the same violin loop for a while, then it changes and eventually fades out into the next song, "Stumble then Rise on some Awkward Morning", which keeps getting faster and faster, and slowly shifting gears. very creepy. The next song, "Move (Never Made)" creeps me out. It is just some guy (well, probably one of the band members) with a really bad voice, singing really bizarre lyrics, with a heavy echo, with the bass playing an out-of-rhythm tunes at times. Then, a surreal, eerie piano is played with the finishing touch of the vocals... It sounds like this guy is dying in an abandoned warehouse with his band and they are singing until they die. After that, you're in desperate need of something incredibly beautiful, and you're going to get it. "13 Angels Standing Guard Round the Side of Your Bed" is by far, the best song on the album. This piece of music just totally astounds me and leaves me breathless every time I listen to it. It boggles my mind how someone can come up with such an arrangement of music and execute and harmonize it so perfectly. If you've ever read something about strange creatures in the middle of the ocean that play the most beautiful music ever and lure you to them and you never ever want to leave and you just sit there for the rest of your life... THIS IS THAT MUSIC. Of course you have to be open minded and in the right mood to get into it, and some might simply say it's boring or not enough going on or repetitive... but I know i'm not the only one who feels the same way about this song. It contains wailing violins and bass lines, but then an unearthly sound that I don't know how it's being created. Maybe it's aleins crying tears of joy because their planet has won a long, horrible war and it's finally over and they have gained freedom and independence. I know, the things I think up are so strange, but I think that describes it pretty good. The next song is 5 seconds long and doesn't sound like anything. Very strange. On a side note, this band put totally wrong track times on the track listing. They say the 5-second song is 4 minutes, and they say "13 Angels..." is 4 minutes when it's really 7:22. It's like they were too lazy to figure out how long they actually were, and just guessed and rounded off the times because they all end evenly (:00) but when you add them up it's about the same length of the album. I like it. Anyways, the last 2 songs are more dark violin and piano songs. nothing really different. This album is excellent for Godspeed You Black Emperor fans and anyone who'd like dark, empty music. Buy it now!
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