Climbing the Mountain

We'd be the first to admit that Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band is an incredibly unwieldy and pretentious name for a band. Said band is Canadian, which might explain a little. The group was formed in 1999, and three of its seven members are also involved with Godspeed You! Black Emperor (at least, according to the Wikipedia page, although, as the page itself mentions, singer and guitarist for the band, Efrim Menuck, has said that the Wikipedia page is "full of wrong stuff"). When we popped their latest CD, 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons, into the player, we really didn't expect to like it, especially when we realized that despite the thirteens in the title, the album actually has 16 tracks, and only four of them are really songs (the first twelve are each only a few seconds long, and contain nothing but a kind of screeching, whistling noise that serves as the introduction to the album). But we listened anyway, and Silver Mt. Zion quickly won us over. Because those four tracks, each an average of about 14 minutes long, are really pretty amazing. We're not sure how to describe the sound; the band is often associated with post-rock, but the length and grandeur of the songs reminds us more of prog rock. It's thrilling, epic, and fantastic, with slowly building and repeating musical and vocal motifs. When describing the band, R5 Productions says: "Melding sound-loops with dense layers of cello & violin, blending and differentiating over a backdrop of ragged repeating guitar and sociopolitical lyrics." Yeah, that works, too.

But why are we and R5 talking about the band? Because they're playing the Church tomorrow night at 8 with Vic Chesnutt. Check it out; should be a crazy show.

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band with Vic Chesnutt
First Unitarian Church (2125 Chestnut Street)
Thu, 5/22/08, 8PM
$12, All Ages

Photo by Mark Slutsky, courtesy Pitch Perfect PR