Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & tra-la-la Band
Horses In The Sky

Thinking of free horses in the sky, for a moment the mind can be fooled into believing that the image might convey a clear and light poetic thought, only to then realize that those steeds might be ridden by the suffering and discomfort of a life where a general awareness of powerlessness in the face of the advance of human barrenness is increasingly alive.
We live every day in the name of death, some firsthand, others only by reflection, nurturing a kind of habit for self-defense that soon becomes indifference and the easy deception of being able to free ourselves from weights so oppressive that prevent us from flying. So, we pretend nothing's wrong and no longer ask questions about what's around us, because they are always the same and then they would bounce back without an answer.

Efrim Menuck, however, still wants to shout "Why?" to the world and does so with this album that contains more questions than answers about his and our surroundings. But he does so despondently, revealing a raw discomfort and a sharp pessimism to the point of truly hurting. It is not, therefore, easy to listen to the latest tormented work of this Canadian ensemble because on the open and never healed wounds of human conscience, this music throws salt, perhaps with the intent of awakening us from the stupor, from the habit of pain, and to remind us that we must not fall into the banality of evil.
This happens from the monumental beginning of the album, represented by an intense anti-militaristic suite, "God Bless Our Dead Marines." It develops with strings in the background, repeating a gloomy rhythm, a dark and unsettling base on which Efrim Menuck's voice is grafted. It announces: They put angels in the electric chair, in the electric chair, in the electric chair and the shocks come represented by violins, which appear "stolen" from the klezmer tradition; then slowly echoes of guitar, obsessive percussion, and the uncertain progress of a piano are added, giving the sensation of a slow tragic crescendo. The road to hell is thus traced, there's nothing left but to traverse it accompanied by the piercing repetition of the theme and the hand clapping, until a distorted electric guitar comes to provide an additional shock, the fatal one that inexorably precludes the way back. Almost twelve minutes of harrowing suffering, closed by a choral song, leave the impression that in this album the intention of the group is to embrace paths partly different from the past.
Extended post-rock gives way to disorienting folk sounds close to song form, in which the role of strings and voice becomes fundamental, while the electric guitar often serves an abrasive and sometimes hallucinatory function ("Mountains Made Of Steam"), becoming an added value and characteristic feature of a music that takes your breath away for the ability to deeply generate visions of pain.

Even though not entirely absent, the sounds of the "Godspeed You! Black Emperor" seem more distant, especially when we hear Efrim Menuck sing the words of the title track, "Horses In The Sky": a fierce lullaby for our times (... and these are violent times/and violence brings more violence/and liars bring more lies...) that empties your soul note after note.
With a broken heart, we listen to this voice, first in a hypnotic form ("Teddy Roosevelt's Guns"), then increasingly desperate, which, like that of a mangy beaten dog, howls at the moon reflected in a puddle all its anguish ("Hang On Each Other"), accompanied by a choir that becomes an alienating background. Then comes an ending ("Ring Them Bells"), an apotheosis, and synthesis of this entire journey, with strings and piano again as the initial protagonists, supporting the voice that gets lost later in the sound of buzzing guitars that, like a hurricane, upset everything suddenly bringing us into a tomb-like silence perhaps never so deafening.

This music is not a pastime, but a violent punch to the stomach, strong enough to make you cry and spit blood. Now you know, so it's up to you to choose whether to continue repeating va tutto bene or start shouting your questions as well.