Every one of Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra La La Band’s releases have focused, in one way or another, on creating an overwhelming sense of musical drama and intensity. Whether through the drawn out string and tremolo guitar crescendos that most typify their sound or with emotionally charged choral vocal interludes, the band clearly has a playbook for achieving maximum intensity. 13 Blues For 13 Moons is no different in its goals, consisting of four 13-minute-plus pieces, each featuring the expected build ups, breakdowns and creeping sense of dread. However, 13 Blues is unique in its attempt to emphasize the “rock” half of the “post-rock” genre where the band usually resides. This manifests itself in surprisingly guitar-riff-oriented movements and Menuck’s vocals taking the lead in almost every instance.

The title track is the most successful in initiating the shift from sweeping orchestral doom to a Black Sabbath-esque sound, starting off with a crashing loop of horns and cymbal-heavy percussion. This promptly falls away, revealing a gnarly blues riff that slowly swirls into a full-blown rock ’n’ roll assault, at times sounding like an enraged Black Mountain.

Menuck’s AdBusters-approved thoughts on the state of the world (conclusion: everything is fucked) are pushed to the foreground on all four tracks, and fail to provide any real revelations or particularly moving use of vocabulary. They come off as only a superficial addition to the furious storm that the band aims to conjure. If listeners are willing to accept (and/or dismiss) the lyrics based on their superficiality, the beauty, rawness and the electricity of the tracks easily come through.