The Mountain Goats: Banished from the Garden of Eden; forced to work land
If there’s one thing that’ll quickly turn me off of something, it’s the influence of religion upon it. So reading about The Mountain Goats’ new album The Life of the World to Come was a little worrying given every song is named after a Bible verse. Other than the awesome sounding Deuteronomy 2:10, it didn’t exact get me excited about the album. Which is a shame, as I’ve adored virtually every previous release. Thankfully John Darnielle reassured somewhat with this posting on his website:
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.
So I suppose I’m now wary but not put off. Although if I’m honest, I don’t love Genesis 3:23, the first song made available from it. It has the usual beautiful imagery (which has always been Darnielle’s primary talent), but it all feels rather lighter than it should. This is probably down to the addition of the organ, but it gives the song a jaunty step that it doesn’t really need.
It’s certainly not bad. Indeed, I’m not sure The Mountain Goats are actually capable of putting up poor material. Odds are, even if the album is of this calibre, it’ll still end up being one of my albums of the year. Perhaps I’m just setting the bar too high. But when your back catalogue includes No Children, This Year and The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton, I suppose that’s to be expected.
The Life of the World to Come will be released on October 6 via 4AD. The Mountain Goats will play a stripped down show (just John and his guitar) on October 10 at the Southbank Centre in London. Of course, this is the same evening I’ll be at An Evening With Kevin Smith at the O2. Bloody typical.
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