The Mountain Goats – The Life Of The World To Come (2009)

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The album was recorded between April and June: first at Electrical Audio with Brandon Eggleston; then at Sonic Ranch with John Congleton; and finally at Baucom Road with Scott Solter. Scott also mixed the entire album at Baucom Road. The band is still Jon Wurster, Peter Hughes, and me; Owen Pallett did string arrangments & played on the Electrical session. The third song in the tracklisting above is a link to the song itself - enjoy!

I guess the obvious question is going to be: "John, have you had some sort of religious awakening?" and while I guess lots of people might want to be coy about answering that, that's never really been my style, so: no. It's not like that. It's not some heavy-narrative-distance deal either, though, and it's not a screed. It's twelve new songs: twelve hard lessons the Bible taught me, kind of. More than that I'd want to wait to say until some people have heard it, which won't be long. Will there be more news soon, quite soon? Like, next week, even? Oh yes there will!

The Mountain Goats: The Life of the World to Come
release date 6 October 2009

The Mountain Goats and Kaki King - Black Pear Tree EP (2008)

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Black Pear Tree, a vinyl- and tour-only EP recorded with the guitarist Kaki King, is one of the only times he's shared center stage. Her vocals on the near-static title track drag his lyrics around like a jail sentence. Dread's nothing new in his songwriting, but his verbal clarity makes vaguer emotions-- fear, for example-- a challenge. "I saw the future in a dream last night, somebody's gonna get hurt, somebody's gonna get hurt/ I hope it's not me, but I suspect it's going to have to be" is as lean as hopelessness gets, but it's not till later that Darnielle's verbiage blurs to a point where the words mimic the feeling: "And when its time came I could see it happen, blossoms black and sweet as Texas crude/ I saw the future flowering like a ruptured vessel, somebody's gonna get screwed"-- now there's doom to get lost in.

On "Mosquito Repellent", King chops at a guitar while Darnielle needles through a lyric about a hopeless, high-strung guy waiting for nothing in particular-- in a rare moment, she sounds freed from her virtuosity and he from his rep as the Mountain Goats, and they're collaborating. Her guitar performances-- deft, pinging adventures-- are strong enough to prop up a slapdash indie pop song, and the weaker "Bring Our Curses Home" and "Roger Patterson Van" get over by the grace of her playing.

They close with "Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is in Another Castle", which is about Toad, a character whose sole purpose in the original "Super Mario Bros." was to wait in terrifying darkness for Mario to arrive, only to wave him through to the next level. But the tail of the song bends to offer the same sweet relief that the Mountain Goats have always leant the used and abused: "When you came in, I could breathe again." Alone, hopelessly-- but at least someone's thinking of him.

Mike Powell/Pitchfork

The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride (2008)

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