  [Arts & Crafts] • February 10, 2004 urlLink Valley of the Giants' Official Website Here we have the debut album from this collaborative outfit that includes members from some pretty big Canadian names (Godspeed You Black Emperor, A Silver Mt. Zion, Do Make Say Think, Broken Social Scene, Shalabi Effect, and Strawberry). It's important that you not go into this one expecting something similar to BSS's You Forgot It In People or G!YBE's Lift Your Skinny Fists... , because you won't find anything of that nature here.
Regardless, what we have here is pretty impressive in its own right. It seems the foursome went into this project with the goal of capturing the ambience of the "Old West" (just take a look at the cover) and for the most part accomplish that quite well. Five of the eight songs are barren instrumentals that each end up building into something quite a bit more sprawling and grandiose by the end, sending your mind off to a place where tumbleweed traverse the dry desert ground and vultures circle over cactii in search of fallen cowboys.
The only problem is that, ranging from 6 to 10 minutes, they can grow somewhat tiresome. You may be tempted to hit the skip button before it gets interesting. Only three of the tracks on Westworld feature vocals and one is just a story - a compelling account of a teeny lil' tiny lil' penguin and a whaling crew, recalled by a gentleman with a thick French-Canadian accent.
Anyway, as a whole, I thought Westworld made for an interesting experience and one that was well executed, but ultimately falls short because there are only one or two tracks that I'd want to revisit with any regularity. Coincidently, they are "Westworld" and "Bala Bay Inn", the very two that feature Deidre Smith's vocals. I'd be interested to see what this group is capable of outside of the conceptual constructs to which they confined themselves for this album. 
