I rather unkindly dismissed this album as boring a little while back, but I have been listening to it a lot since then and I think I need to retreat from that position just a little.

Just to be straight, I am not taking it back entirely.  I think there are quite a few weak songs, and that the sound is just a little too soft and pleasant at times, but there is still some really excellent stuff on All Eternals Deck.

I should first confess that I got into The Mountain Goats, not by the early records which the purist indie-snob might require, but by their Big Pop Hit The Sunset Tree in 2005.  I have also, just to add even more caveats, subsequently discovered that I am probably not all that much of a Mountain Goats fan, all told.  I have explored their back catalogue both forwards and backwards, and rarely found more than bits and pieces which I have liked, although I’ll admit I haven’t heard their very first records, which are supposed to be fantastic.

Which brings us to All Eternals Deck, an album which initially reminded me too strongly of the distinctly soft Heretic Pride, from a year or two ago.  All Eternals Deck is, I think, a better album, and I should not have written it off so quickly.  The Age of Kings is wistful and lovely, and the somewhat bizarre High Hawk Season probably shouldn’t work, with the weird choral backing, but does.

There are other highlights too, such as the rather unpleasant The Autopsy Garland and lovely opener Damn These Vampires, but I still think that I personally would not have included a little under half these songs. Particularly towards the end of the album, for all the songs definitely sound like Mountain Goats songs, that is about all they sound like – their defining characteristic becomes their only one, in a way.

It’s difficult to meaningfully write about an album when you only have a loose relationship with the band’s music, so I don’t want to imply that even I think my opinion on this record is worth all that much.  But for all there is a fair bit which still isn’t really doing that much for me, there are some excellent songs here, and I think I have been a bit unfair in how quickly I dismissed it.

The Mountain Goats – Age of Kings

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The Mountain Goats – High Hawk Season

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