Packaging Notes
2xLP is pressed on 180g audiophile vinyl and comes in a thick paperboard jacket with 12"x12" artwork insert and lyrics booklet.
CD comes in a custom paperboard mini-gatefold jacket with lyrics booklet.
13 Blues for Thirteen Moons Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra
Release date: 28 March 2008
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Tracklist
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13. 1,000,000 Died To Make This Sound
14. 13 Blues For Thirteen Moons
15. Black Waters Blowed/Engine Broke Blues
16. BlindBlindBlind
Running time: 00:59:10
Packaging Notes
2xLP is pressed on 180g audiophile vinyl and comes in a thick paperboard jacket with 12"x12" artwork insert and lyrics booklet.
CD comes in a custom paperboard mini-gatefold jacket with lyrics booklet.
Description
On 13 Blues For Thirteen Moons, Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band (two guitars, two violins, cello, contrebasse and drums) has grown louder, looser, full of spittle and tears and riffs are the backbone more than ever. Anchored by drummer Eric Craven (ex-Hangedup), the band works its slow build and burn with newfound patience, sinuousness and ferocity. Whether methodically framing walls of sound over the four-on-the-floor punk dirge of “1,000,000 Died To Make This Sound” or exploding in sheets of free noise and melody on “Black Waters Blowed”, the band has never rocked harder and has never sounded more determined, desperate and driven. A stuttered blues riff is the foundation for the album’s title track, making its appearance after a blisteringly minimalist intro. “Engine Broke Blues” features a gorgeous set of chords that build inexorably from multiple guitar, string and organ lines.
The recording, undertaken at the Hotel2Tango in Montreal and co-engineered by Howard Bilerman and Radwan Moumneh ups the ante considerably, with crackling guitar crescendos setting the pace for dive-bombing swirls of strings, while Efrim’s voice rasps and wails words of worry, hope and fury throughout. The band’s hallmark group vocal passages are positively spine-tingling.
Credits
Beckie: cello, voiceEfrim: guitar, organ, vocals
Eric: drums, voice
Ian: guitar, voice
Jessica: violin, voice
Sophie: violin, voice
Thierry: contrebasse, electric bass, voice
Guests
Brian Lipson: trumpets on TRACK 14Nadia Moss: organ on TRACK 14
Recorded at Hotel2Tango in Montreal by Howard Bilerman and Radwan Moumneh, summer 2007. Mastered by Harris Newman.
Reviews
"[A] flash flood, an album that saturates the senses with a surge of acerbic, sledge-hammering riffs and drenching orchestration… An album that stretches beyond emotional boundaries and embeds itself within walls of the heart." – Drowned In Sound
"‘13 Blues…’ finds the band reaching new heights of rhythmic concision and focused movements, letting the strong, mostly vocal melodies speak for themselves. All that was precious or precocious in the material has been honed away, leaving a stronger, more sure-footed band in its wake." – Skyscraper
"SMZ’s intertwined groups vocals and temperamental arrangements have never been so incandescent, with Menuck emerging fully-formed as a pointed abstractionist and compelling singer." – Signal To Noise
"Menuck handles language deftly, painting disturbing pictures of these fractured, uneasy times, a streak of hope and beauty shooting through the roiling, festering music, in perfect counterpoint." – Prefix
"[T]his new noise of Silver Mount Zion possesses an unpredictable, dangerous edge. It's their call to arms, if you will… [yet] the band known for its relentlessly bleak and desperate outlook manage to maintain enough spirit to close its most righteous, furious record on a note that's full of grace, beauty, and hope." – AllMusic
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