Efrim Menuck – Plays "High Gospel"

As a founding member of both Godspeed You! Black Emperor and A Silver Mount Zion (under its many varied monickers) Efrim Menuck has spent 15 years as a central figure of post-rock and an inspiration to those other musical pioneers looking to combine the roughness and politicisation of punk with the elegance and grandeur of classical. This record is an accumulated collection of his solo adventures.

As well as the usual haunting passages of guitar and signature delay, High Gospel also brings to the fore Menuck's work with analogue noise-scapes and musical deconstruction. Some of this sound-craft, typically flying in the face of the digital revolution and the dominance of ProTools etc, is intriguing and at times forceful, such as on cacophonous second track A 12-pt. Program For Keep On Keepin' On. That said, the mayhem is nicely tempered by more familiar excursions into the spacious Canadian melancholy of his other projects, including the delicate, guitar based, August 4. Year-Of-Our-Lord Blues. [Chris Cusack]