He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms

the rather verbose name of an album put out by a band called A Silver Mt. Zion, a splinter project of the equally verbose Godspeed You Black Emperor!. Their distinguishing characteristic being the wholehearted belief that the end is coming and Armageddon is near. They therefore produce soul shatteringly gorgeous music for it's own sake( what you could also call end-time music).

the band is composed of three members (though others come and go at will): Efrim Menuck on guitar, bassist Thierry Amar, and violinist Sophie Trudeau.

They are a refreshing break from the commercialism and overproduced bubble-gum pink candy coated ultra-pop stars that inhabit today's Top 40. Their records are packaged in plain cardboard, and released on the obscure Montreal based label Constellation Records. the CD (as shipped in the US) is totally black, and the credo emblazoned along the top reads "destroy all dreamers w/debt + depression..." They will not exactly cheer you up.

a tracklist:
one-"lonely as the sound of lying on the ground of an airplane going down"
(i) broken chords can sing a little
(ii) sit in the middle of three galloping dogs
(iii) stumble then rise on some awkward morning
(iV) movie (never made)
two-"the world is sickSICK;(so kiss me quick)!
(i) 13 angels standing guard 'round the side of your bed
(ii) long march rocket or doomed airliner
(iii) blown-out joy from heaven's mercied hole
(iv) for wanda

Also, they have since released another EP, titled Born Into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward.

pitchforkmedia.com did a good review of this record.

The night is ablaze with hormones and sweat and the hot sticky breath that floats through the air and defines itself, sets itself apart from the non-space of the room with pure determination. I rush between rooms, between places, between thoughts and everywhere I carry the atmosphere with me. The night is sweating with me.

Go to the coffee shop. Go to the bar. Go to the club. Everything is in motion. Everyone is moving. I see her and I can feel her in the deep fleshy part of my chest where emotion originates from pure chemical fury. I can only imagine what she thinks of me, if she thinks of me, how well my pheromones are communicating what I wouldn’t even dare to think. I wonder, and the night keeps on blurring past.

She is perfect. That is to say, she is a woman and she has brought me to an apex of interest which is reserved for this sort of mid-night dalliance. The crowd around us mixes and spins like cigarette smoke under a streetlight and just as smoke it dissipates until we seem to be alone under the warm light.

Fluorescents would destroy the moment with jagged edges of shadow, slicing the experience into an infinite and infinitely perceptible collection of images at the rate of 120Hz, but the warm glow of an ancient light bulb washes over the two of us as if it were the sun itself. The light pours down upon us, highlighting the bronze in her skin and the fear in my eyes.

I take a beat. Hold your breath. Count to ten. Say a prayer.

She notices me. She takes a beat.

And the moment shatters into pure lust as we realize each other’s intentions and reveal our true emotions. We don’t say a word; we don’t need to say anything. We are eternal in that moment of realization. We are perfect in that moment of realization.

Suddenly I realized that if I stepped out of my body I would break into blossom.

The rest of the evening is incidental, nothing more than a collection of images: caressing the small of her neck, laughing for no reason, crying for no reason, holding each other as the night grows into morning and the morning grows into afternoon.

Somehow, we are in a park beneath the torn paper edge of a cloudy sky. The green grass springs beneath our tangled bodies and we smile at the day that is burning around us.