efrim menuck – guitar, piano, vocals, tapes, effects
thierry amar – contrabass, vocals
sophie trudeau – violin, vocals
jessica moss - violin, vocals
beckie foon - cello, vocals
ian ilavsky - guitar, vocals
eric craven - drums, vocals
nadia moss - organ
brian lipson - trumpet
howard bilerman - production
13) 1 000 000 died to make this sound
14) 13 blues for thirteen moons
15) black waters blowed / engine broke blues
16) blindblindblind
Symphonic Benchmark
Conceptual
this is a record that happened in a very different phase of my life; i have to admit that i was actually extremely surprised to connect to this disc at all, let alone as deeply as i did. as it is, it might be my favourite record of the 00s - and a special disc it is, too.
my life in 2008 was virtually unrecognizable from my life in 2005. i'd lost touch with, rejected or been rejected by virtually everybody i had been in contact with; i was spending virtually all of my time outside of work entirely by myself, and largely enjoying it. while i would eventually go back at least twice, it seemed like i was out of school permanently - and without any serious employment opportunities. i was bouncing around from call centre to call centre (repeatedly fired, and unable to care) in an attempt to pay rent, bills and student loan interest payments. the pressures were very different, but, in a very real way, this was a return to the conditions that i first connected with this band in the first place. into that reality of aimlessly drifting through forced meaningless labour, and through whatever alignment that the universe provided, mt. zion managed to yet again produce a record that explored precisely what i was living through and hit me in exactly the way i needed at exactly the time i needed it.
i've long interpreted the disc as a concept record, but i don't pretend that the band meant for it to be one. it just seemed to intersect so much with what i was feeling and thinking that i intuitively constructed a narrative out of it. in this interpretative fantasy, the record follows an honest musician through the horrors of modern existence. it explores the vapid nature of indie culture, constructs villains out of evil bankers enforcing wage slavery to demand loan payments and ultimately ends with an affirmation of pure fucking honesty in the most powerful way possible. in absolute terms, the climax of the record is so precious as to nearly be trite but that's exactly why it's so amazingly powerful. you mean there really are some hearts that are true in this world? really? why are they so hard to find? in the midst of the extreme doubt i was experiencing, i definitely needed somebody to tell me exactly that at that exact point.
it's not just the conceptual aspect that drives this thing, either. in completely unhyphenated terms, it's just a fucking sold rock album full of messy, no wave stomps and flat-out kickass riffs. see, the kind of indictment of popular culture that the record lays out requires a very angry delivery and the band really delivers on it. the strings are very much pulled back to a more traditional "rock accompaniment", but it's actually an asset, in context. it's one thing to tear down the shit culture we're stuck with, it's another to show everybody how it should be done in terms that the masses can connect to. this had to be a takedown of popular rock music to get it's point across properly; it wouldn't have packed the same punch as a bunch of bartok variations.
it's not often that i will suggest an album is flawless, but i can't find a flaw here. what i will say is that the record is heavy. if things are going well for you right now and you're feeling pretty good about yourself, you probably won't want to hear a record full of rants that question your integrity, your intelligence and your basic decency for merely carrying through with the life that the system created for you to live. that might be exactly why you actually should listen to this very carefully. you might need an anvil across the fucking forehead to get you to behave like a decent person. unfortunately, if that's the case, you're probably more likely to get defensive about it, or run off words by some asshole philosopher that is so lost in meaningless abstraction that they can't see the basic use of being nice to people. that will restrict this record's most passionate audience to people with a conscience - and especially people with a conscience that are just getting bludgeoned down by a society that lacks one.
unfortunately, that means that most people won't really get this. for those that will get it, though, it's really a treat. highly, highly recommended.