A Silver Mt. Zion - Hang on to Each Other
Efrim Menuck is frequently quoted as saying that A Silver Mt. Zion are a punk band. You'd think, what with him being the band's main singer, that he'd be entitled to that opinion. And he is. But that statement depends upon too generous a meaning of the work punk. Certainly, some punks were underground activists, political agitators, grassroots DIY innovators. But a lot more were silly kids who liked to dress up at the weekend. It's time to stop romanticising the word punk. If nothing else, it's implicitly disrespectful to the rest of the counterculture to claim all of those attitudes are the sole property of a single musical style.

I'm going to enter this linguistic fray and claim something else entirely. A Silver Mt. Zion are a folk band. This is the sound of community singing; the sound of activists and protesters huddled around oil fires in prefab utility buildings; the sound of the world slowly changing. Hang on to Each Other is taken from their 2005 album, Horses in the Sky. It's quiet and proud. (No, seriously, it's very quiet. Turn your amp all the way up or the first minute will be barely audible.) It sounds like a band of strangers being brought together in common song, growing in confidence and spirit. If it's not taken up by picket lines in the near future I'll be rather surprised.

A Silver Mt. Zion - Hang on to Each Other