BORN INTO TROUBLE AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARDS

When A Silver Mt. Zion's debut album proved more successful than expected, Efraim was emboldened to make this Godspeed You Black Emperor side project more than a mere one-off. The followup album was actually released about a month or so after 9/11, which makes its doomy Biblical title rather more timely than anticipated, but even outside of that context this is a haunting and troubling meditation on the struggles of imperfect people in an imperfect world. It isn't quite as compelling and the debut, and the band seem to struggle with finding ways to usefully integrate vocals into their music, but on the whole it gives plenty of reason to believe that the Silver Mt. Zion project has a long way to go yet.