The Ascent Of Everest - How Lonely Sits The City

Released in July of 2006, the debut album from The Ascent of Everest, How Lonely Sits the City, seems at first to be just another Godspeed You! Clone. But with closer listening, one can hear the extreme differences in sound and mood from most post-rock band today.

The CD art catches your eye right away; the cover consists of a beautiful minimalist illustration, which establishes a mood of brooding isolation from the get-go. The track names are traditionally post-rock, with long, semi-pretentious titles that bring to mind tracks from bands like Red Sparowes or A Silver Mount Zion. But the long names serve a purpose in establishing the overall concept of the album. With names like ‘As the City Burned We Trembled for We Saw the Makings of It’s Undoing in Our Own Hearts’ the concept of an isolated city being invaded and destroyed is portrayed remarkably.

The album begins on a joyful note, showing the beauty and serenity of an innocent civilization. The first track of the album, ‘Alas, Alas! The Breath of Life’, is a rising song with sweet sounding guitar layered over piano lines, which gives way to a beautifully melancholy violin part, foreshadowing the intense music to come. The second track ‘As the City Burned We Trembled for We Saw the Makings of It’s Undoing in Our Own Hearts’ is more chaotic sounding, revealing the ‘falling of the city’. Forceful violin fades into faster tempo guitar and percussion, with brief bursts of relatively quiet vocals.The track continues with the same violin part form the first track, which serves to tie the songs together, making a more conceptual feel. The Fifth track ‘If I Could Move Mountains’ has three parts, each distinctly different, helping to move along the story past its climax into a peaceful resolution. The fourteen minute track moves quickly from desperately longing violins to crashing percussion and distorted guitar, and ending in the joyful voices of children playing. The third portion of the song which is subtitled ‘Gathered Hearts Rise and Sing at the First Breath of Dawn’ brings a meaningful and cheerful conclusion to the story.

Overall the theme of the album is very well portrayed, and the style of music is distinctly its own. This is a post-rock piece that deserves some recognition in a genre of sometimes mediocre music. Aside from unnecessarily hushed vocals this album is a major achievement with each instrument maintaining its own place in the music, from wailing guitars and crashing cymbals, to melancholy violins and ringing bells.

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