Of all the Godspeed! You Black Emperor side projects, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band -- which, heretofore, we will call ASMZ, based on their band name's first incarnation -- has attracted the most significant following of all the 'spin-off' bands laboring in the absence of GYBE output. Founding member, guitarist, and crazy-haired figurehead Efrim Manuck was, whether he wanted the attention or not, the most recognizable of the GYBE crew, and has done an admirable job parlaying that into ASMZ's humble successes. Considering what they are, politically militant post-rock, it remains surprising that this rag-tag group of Anarchists, Diasporists, musical mad scientists, and otherwise disaffected neo-hippy grad student-types, maintains it's white-hot belly-fire long past the salad days of the globalization protests that occurred with such frequency as we approached the turning of the millennium. Nevertheless, ASMZ soldiers on into 2008 with the release of their 5th studio album, 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons, with all the vitriol and millennial angst of the pugnacious Canadians we first came to know. For better or for worse.

ASMZ's music has always been a fractured affair, tenuously tethered to some idealized pan-global sanity they know may never come to pass. Like GYBE, their albums are a hodgepodge of vehement manifestos, futilitarian screeds, quivering epiphanies, and calls-to-arms all tied together with their collective's trademark avant-garde styling. That being said, the precocity that 13BFTM starts off with comes as no surprise: 12 tracks of biting tones like moist fingers rubbed across wine glass rims, all less than 12 seconds long. Willfully obtuse, kinda pretty, but basically meaningless to both the rabid fan and the casual listener. Track 13 (get it?), "1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound", sets the tone for the album's four actual tracks, featuring Efrim's caterwaul vocals over the eponymous, disturbing mantra. The sound ideas presented in the piece are not nearly enough to carry interest for 14 minutes, let alone prevent it from collapsing under it's accusatory heft as it descends into a climax that sounds more like a early Pavement outtake.

The title track is more of the same frenetic finger-wagging with lyrics like "The hangman's got a hard-on / the pundits smell like coffin", and our eyes roll endlessly. Listening to all 13 minutes of "Black Waters Blowed/Engine Broke Blues" is like having a bad acid trip on a New Orleans funeral march where the horns have been replaced by an army of fuzzy-headed demagogues with Rat pedals strumming like assholes. ASMZ once used their admirable - and academically adorable - string section effectively, yet 13BFTM showcases how criminally underutilized their talents have become since ASMZ expanded out of it's nascent triumvirate. The closer, "BlindBlindBlind", almost makes up for some of the egregious errors ASMZ has made in producing this album. More than the previous 3 (15?) tracks, it is a fully realized and, more importantly, listenable piece. With touches of pizzicato strings, Efrim's voice reigned in a bit, and a sublimely affecting climax, it musically achieves what the rest of this album appears to be merely stumbling toward in the misty battlefields of their projected holocausts. A sweet swig of catharsis squeezed out of the dirty rags of the previous 40 minutes.

Where we once marched beside these placard-carrying protesters towards the fires on the horizons of their catastrophic tales, through their patience-testing (and mostly rewarding) experiments, inspired and energized by the defiant hope that their previous work angrily teared up with, there is little in this album to rally around. Perhaps the movement has petered out. Perhaps we should just wait for the next lengthy title to come along out of their ranks, hoping for a return to form.

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra [Official] [MySpace]