It's been over thirty years since Bowie got glittery, and since, rock and roll gimmickry has just about exhausted itself: we've still got boys in suits, faux-brother/sister duos, and men with split tongues sporting full makeup, but the public's fickle interest wanes far faster these days, and it takes more than silver boots to raise a collective eyebrow. Post-rock, on the other hand, is barely post-pubescent, so there's still lots of time for snarking around-- and no one seems to have a better grasp of this than the Canadian post-rock collectives, who consistently release records under completely ridiculous names.
Enter Silver Mt. Zion, who, guest players and fancy accoutrements aside, are essentially a Montreal-based sextet fronted by Godspeed You! Black Emperor's brooding brainchild, Efrim Menuck. Both of Efrim's gigs boast spacious, classical-meets-post-rock sounds (not to mention a proclivity for fiendishly irrelevant identity crises), but there are no shifting exclamation points here-- this one's gimmick is the bandname that expands with each release. Debuting as the relatively modest A Silver Mt. Zion, 2001's Born into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward had them billed as the more epic-sounding The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band. And this time out they've been generous enough to grace us "With Choir," too. The contrivances, of course, goes a little deeper than that, and while This is Our Punk Rock, Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing may not be quite as concept-heavy as something like Ziggy Stardust, it nonetheless comes with a pointed, non-musical agenda.
Silver Mt. Zion's brand of "punk rock" is, in a sense, just that: ideologically driven protest music designed to raise a big fat finger at established social and cultural norms. But don't go getting all pogo-primed-- this is cerebral shit, less concerned with getting you to strap on black boots than encouraging you to boycott Wal-Mart and locate alternative news sources. The underlying concept of the record is heady, but not too different from what (the comparably lucid) Conor Oberst was hollering about on Desaparacidos' Read Music/Speak Spanish: lashing out against the impending threat of unregulated urban landscapes, sprawling bigbox superstores, and governmental mismanagement. Unlike Oberst, though, Silver Mt. Zion think globally, and this album also contains jabs at western imperialism, piggish entitlement, and ethically questionable military occupations.
For the most part, the band employs more subtle means of communicating their message than plain old lyrics: This is Our Punk Rock mainly consists of swooping strings, hollowed chanting, and found sounds arranged into big orchestral and choral sequences. Opener "Sow Some Lonesome Corner So Many Flowers Bloom" features a swoon-and-break structure that resurfaces on the album again and again: these songs are far from formulaic, but they occasionally mimic each other's movements-- multi-layered vocals bleed into orchestral recesses, which shift into silence and then into noise.
One very notable difference between this and other Silver Mt. Zion records is that it sees Efrim's quivering pipes just as active as his guitar-screwdrivering hands. And he's not the only one treating us to high-pitched, deliberately off-key warbling; this is where the questionable stylings of that "full amateur choir" come into play. All these unnecessary (and aggressively shrill) vocal contributions can quickly become grating, especially when they interfere with the impressive instrumentation. In a way, this contrast makes sense: Silver Mt. Zion seem to intend these songs to be heard and perceived as angry or defiant, but it's difficult to get around their inherent beauty. The tension between the delicacy and the outrage (or between the strings and the vocals) has potential to be unbelievably compelling-- it's just that its implementation here is usually far more distracting than enlightening. Consequently, the relative success of This is Our Punk Rock is hard to quantify in any unilateral way; it relies heavily on user participation, and the quality of that exchange is inextricably linked to how much time and patience a given listener has available on the day they pick up this record and drag it back home.
Making thematically (and aurally) challenging music that's not particularly "easy" to summarize or decipher is obviously not something to rally against; nobody wants Silver Mt. Zion to drop their agenda, embrace facility, and dumb that shit down. But self-indulgence (coupled with a healthy smattering of righteousness) is still a viable problem, even if it's wrapped up in a thick blanket of noble intentions. When you've opted to go full-on "difficult," you've got to be extra careful to validate the concessions you're demanding of your audience-- the fact that it takes a good minute to even type out the name of this band and the title of their record means, then, that folks should also have the automatic right to ask the hard questions (just as A Silver Mt. Zion have the right to record four fifteen-minute, heavily principled opuses), and to actively challenge the bits that seem overwrought, irritating, or wincingly pretentious.
Which circles back to listener dedication: if you're willing to filter out (or learn to appreciate) Menuck's maddening vocal cartwheeling, and let yourself be led around by the head for a bit, This is Our Punk Rock will reward you with a few sizable payoffs. But if your tolerance for self-importance is dipping low, look elsewhere for edification. Fast.
