Life of the Mountain Goats

“There’s much beauty here, and much pain.”

Mountain Goats
The Life of the World to Come (Just Music)
John Darnielle, the driving force of the Mountain Goats, has been called “America’s greatest songwriter currently working”. Although I’d give that meretricious accolade to Jim White, Darnielle is undeniably a fabulous songwriter. The Mountain Goats have been around since 1991, in various incarnations. Oddly, fluid line-ups used to be a sign of fragmentation in a band — now reinvention is a sign of coherent artistic growth.

And this growth is evidenced by the Mountain Goats’ shift from a lo-fi, boombox output to the polished, pellucid, paradoxical rawness of The Life of the World to Come. The songs are all named after biblical verses, except for the closing Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace. According to Darnielle, “the songs are 12 hard lessons the Bible taught me”. So the lesson of Romans 10:9, for example, seems to be: “If you will believe in your heart / and confess with your lips / surely you will be saved one day.”

John Darnielle in full cry.

The Mountain Goats’ clean guitar sound, underpinned by solid, restrained drumming and embellished with piano and strings, provides the perfect pulpit for Darnielle to deliver his inspired, poetic, trenchant lyrics. There’s much beauty here and much pain.

(First published in the Mail & Guardian, May 2010)

1. 

   stuart Robertson says:

   May 18, 2010 at 2:56 pm

   It’s worth getting “All Hail West Texas” about as lo-fi as they have ever been and has a killer track one called “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton”
   stuart
2. 

   AlainWilliam says:

   August 3, 2010 at 10:13 pm

   I agree with the above comment: All Hail West Texas is great. I also quite like Jim White, and especially liked the ‘Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus’ documentary, but I picked up a copy of the ‘Hellwood’ project he did and it’s one of the worst things I’ve heard in a long time.
3. 

   Chris says:

   August 19, 2010 at 3:03 pm

   I liked Hellwood, I must say. A little downbeat, but pretty cool, evocative.