Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra -- Kollaps Tradixionales

6/10

Forget all that stuff I said in the previous reviews. Kollaps Tradixionales is a rock album, with winding songs, strings, and bad vocals. Silver Mt. Zion dial back most of their experimental tendencies, get rid of all the weird sound collages, and increase the amount of vocals. Rather arguably, the sound collages are one the best qualities of the band's previous work, and quite inarguably, the vocals have always been one of the band's worst qualities. Singer/guitarist/greatest-among-equals, Efrim Menuck seemed to be finding a way to make his singing more tolerable in early-00's era Silver Mt. Zion, adding a slight country twang that strangely worked. Here, he goes for some kind of Beatles, Brit-pop thing, and boy howdy, does it not compliment his pitchy, screechy voice. I somehow missed 2005's Horses in the Sky, and 2008's 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons, but Menuck's vocals here not only turn me off from wanting to listen to the two bridges that got Silver Mt. Zion here from the three early 00's albums of their's I've previously reviewed, but from listening to the one they did after this, as well. I can't totally slam Kollaps Tradixionales, though, as the lousy vocals don't totally mute out the more hard rocking instrumentation. The music may be a bit more generic than that found in the band's previous work, but the full drums throughout sure make it more immediate. This dude's got to drop just a little of his DIY pride, though, and see a vocal coach. He's too talented in other regards to let his singing get in the way


2010 Constellation
1. There Is a Light 15:19
2. I Built Myself a Metal Bird 6:17
3. I Fed My Metal Bird the Wings of Other Metal Birds 6:18
4. Kollapz Tradixional (Thee Olde Dirty Flag) 6:09
5. Collapse Traditional (For Darling) 1:29
6. Kollaps Tradicional (Bury 3 Dynamos) 6:48
7. 'Piphany Rambler 14:19