Efrim Manuel Menuck & Kevin Doria - are SING SINCK, SING

Efrim Manuel Menuck, one of the founding members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and a solo artist in his own right and Kevin Doria from Growing and Total Life, neither band exactly a household name, are now officially a duo.

are SING SINCK, SING is the first recorded release, with the guys promising more to come. They started collaborating when Menuck enlisted Doria to translate his Pissing Stars album into live performances. The collaboration turned into a more permanent arrangement, with the duo writing, as they put it, “piles of new material”, the five compositions here being something of a taster of things to come.

Two things certainly do not change with Menuck - one is his political/social engagement through music, and the other is the high quality of what he comes up with, no matter who else is involved.

On the evidence of this album, SING SINCK, SING is definitely going to tilt towards the electronic drones and Menuck’s quite recognizable vocals. And the combination works a charm, like a politically charged Spiritualized with feedback drones turned up a few notches.

Luckily for all listeners, the duo make the song titles more or less self-explanatory - “Do The Police Embrace?”, as Menuck explains is the comment on the police sirens wailing as they were preparing the album. “Fight The Good Fight” is, as he puts it, a statement of intent, “A Humming Void An Emptied Place” is to depict empty space between two highways, falling easily into imager Menuck has so far created with his work, “Joy Is On Her Mount And Death Is At Her Side”, the most resounding track here, is ‘about a murdered forest’, and like in a manifesto, “We Will”, leaves the key word out of the title - win.

The quality of are SING SINCK, SING lies in the fact that, while you can certainly be sure throughout that Menuck’s compositional and singing style is firmly present, there are new shifts and wrinkles brought in, presenting another, at the same time sobering and fruitful chapter in the evolving Godspeed, Thee Silver Mt. Zion, etc. story.