HORSES IN THE SKY

I am not one to get caught up in classification of genres etc. I do own the complete Godspeed You Black Emperor, Sigur Ros & Mogwai collection, and it seems that the industry wants to group these bands together, so I guess I'm in a pretty good position to draw comparison between Silver Mt Zion and the aforementioned.

Yes there are similarities between Silver Mt Zion and GYBE but you can argue at face value that all Sigur Ros albums sound the same! (It depends on what you choose to glean from it). The obvious difference between Silver Mt Zion and GYBE is that the former is very much lyric based, and for this album at least, choose not to have significant lulls that (to be honest) get a little tiresome on Lift Your Skinny Fists.

So the album itself? Six relatively lengthy tracks with the first 3 all a standout. After about 3 separate listens to Mountains Made of Steam (Track 2), I got into that zone where I just had to listen to this track about 6-7 times in a row (not bad for a 10 minute track!). To be honest, it was this track alone that inspired me to put this commentary in, cause if something gives me goosebumps, I figured you gotta share it with the world. The self-titled track, while perhaps not ground-breaking, stays true from start to finish. There's a bit of a drop away over the last 3 tracks, but to be fair, I haven't given them so much of a run, having been stuck so far on Tracks 1-3!

I guess the true measure is a) would I recommend this to others and b) will I purchase the rest of Silver Mt Zion's collection. The answer to both is YES! (especially given that other reviews suggest this recording to be weaker than some of their previous stuff).