- Record Label: Constellation
- Release Date: Feb 16, 2010
- Critic score
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- By date
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Kollaps Tradixionales is an outstanding album that competes with anything the band has done previously under its various monikers. It's early in the year to be predicting albums of 2010, but this will surely be up there.
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Silver Mt. Zion provides ample proof here that it has become the unit by which the work of those musicians who pass through its ranks should be judged.
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At the very least, it should win new converts just in time for the long-awaited reunion.
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MojoElegiac Montreal collective's relatively orthodox sixth album. [May 2010, p. 97]
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This is another chapter in the sonic evolution that began with the name A Silver Mt. Zion, and contains many more dimensions, layers, and textures. It pushes harder and further with much less, yet comes across as no less raggedly and poetically majestic.
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UncutWhile Efrim Menuck will never be a technically great singer, his fiery, hopeful delivery here marks a career best. [Mar 2010, p.96]
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Kollaps Tradixionales makes no apologies for this shift, but it does defuse 13 Blues' sometimes oppressive air by reconciling the band's current incarnation with its more graceful earlier output.
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Though the album is an hour long, there are at least thirty minutes of excellent music here. Those who were excited by the direction implied by 13 Moons, however, can't help but feel disappointed.
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It pretty much wouldn't be a Silver Mt Zion record if it didn't have a pretty-much-impossible-to-understand conceptually connected section at one or more points. Tracks four to six fit this bill, being alternate spellings of the album title.
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The emphasis on songcraft here puts Menuck's vocal range in the spotlight. While he has some standout moments, notably a casual lamentation within "Kollapz Tradixional (Thee Olde Dirty Flag)" and a jagged shout on "Kollaps Tradicional (Bury 3 Dynamos)," his range isn't always up to the demands of the music.
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This is another tippy-toe step forward in a strange journey that's seen them steadily chart a course beyond the ubiquitous post-rock tag to take in orchestral pomp and clattering psych-outs as they forge some sort of hairy, woebegone chamber music for an indie set raised on Dirty Three and The Black Heart Procession.
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They may be pared down to 5 members now, but they still generate a big band noise. Whether this is down to overdubbing or clever use of atmospherics is anyone's guess, but the results are convincing.
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FilterThe titular light only spills out over rolling snares after much searching. Unfortunately, the remainder of Kollaps Tradixionales isn't quite up to the task. [Winter 2010, p.94]
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They're onto something with the blistering, bluesy, punk direction, but the sound will never gel as long as the songs keep getting stretched beyond their logical breaking points. It's time to move on.
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The co-founder of Godspeed You! Black Emperor still makes stumbling experimental rock but fails to improve on his previous work.
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Q MagazineThe two-part "Metal Bird" is genuinely thrilling. They don't scale such heights elesewhere, but this is still an album that rewards perseverance. [Mar 2010, p.108]