The Mountain Goats – The Life of the World to Come
Hmm, given my slightly patchy relationship with the Mountain Goats (I love some albums, like some, am not that fussed by others, but I don’t really know their music all that well) and given the general mumbles of ambivalence from the faithful which I have heard accompanying this release, I was prepared to like this record an awful lot less than I do.
Heretic Pride and I only partially connected, and I had sort of expected that to be that with this band. They were very much established by now, they weren’t particularly young anymore and they had scored a couple of borderline mainstream hits recently. Time, in other words, for squishy, over-produced re-treads of old territory for the next three albums and then a comfortable enough retirement.
Concept albums also give me a bit of a twitch. They can occasionally be brilliant, but more often are just a little contrived – a point stretched just slightly too far to fit the original idea. The title of this album and the titles of the songs themselves should tell you all you need to know about the concept underpinning this piece of work.
It doesn’t start particularly brilliantly either. Samuel 15:23 is a little plodding, with thudding drums which give the song a rather heavy step and seem to hold it back a little. Psalms 40:2 is good, but then Genesis 3:23 is the sort of annoying Mountain Goats pop-lite sound which publicity people tend to send out to bloggers because they think it’s the obvious pop song. Which it is, but it’s no way to market a band like this.
No, The Mountain Goats are at their best, in my opinion, when Darnielle’s voice rises to a nasal snarl of anguish. Even though Sunset Tree was heavily arranged and very produced, that snarl was still in strong evidence on that album, and you can certainly hear it here on a few occasions, which I am really happy with, because it’s been missing for a while.
Then at times he slows to a glacial pace; each exhalation accompanied by the barest touch of piano. Genesis 30:3 accomplishes this with the most success, I think, although in general this is a pretty slow-paced record, so it’s a prominent technique of the course of the whole forty-five minutes.
I think there are probably just a few too many soft impressions of the Mountain Goats on this record for me to really get too giddy about it, but for the most part it’s pretty good actually, and a lot better than I was expecting.
The Mountain Goats – Psalms 40:2
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The Mountain Goats – Matthew 25:21
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Ah, I have been waiting for this to get reviewed! I totally agree about the anguished snarling and angry guitar strumming. I’m not sure how I feel about those youtube videos.
The Sunset Tree and Tallahassee are sheer awesome, and I’m pretty excited to get this, though a die-hard fan I am not.
I quite like this review, Matthew – and for someone who says they have only recently been introduced to the Mountain Goats music you seem to know a fair amount about their past material.
My review touched on some similar points in terms of expectations with this album and otherwise – so maybe that’s why I like it so much
I think if I’d expected more I might well have been disappointed, but my expectations were pretty low, so I was pleasantly surprised with this.
Voldermania – YouTube videos? Have I missed out on internet mentalism?
No, no mentalism – I refer to the videos of John Darnielle singing/guitaring/rocking back and forth in a slightly upsetting way.
Oooh. More creepy than weird, huh? More mental than mental.
He’s been heading downhill for a few years. But god, I hope this is rock bottom.
He once delivered the most intriguing stories. Now he bores me. There was once a time when,
the old voice crackled through the static.
and i felt young and alive
and the hair stood up on the back of my neck
we were rising from the grave
(I’m giving myself a pat on the back for this post. Made my point, while giving an example. Surprised myself with such cleverness.)