Mountain Goats • The Life Of The World To Come
Sounds like: Neutral Milk Hotel, Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine
There’s a fair few musicians who are veterans in the industry. They’ve released more albums than you’ve had hot dinners; yet to the general populous are unheard of, seeming to only gain cult status in small underground circles.
A perfect example of this is The Mountain Goats.
One look at The Mountain Goats Discography on Wiki turns me into a kid at a candy store. There’s almost too much to choose from. In situations like that, I usually just start with the latest offering. For TMG (an affectionate fan acronym) that comes in the form of 2009’s The Life Of The World To Come.
If you’d never heard any previous material and just looked at the track listing, you may presume TMG’s are a Christian-Rock band, as every track on the new album is named after a Bible scripture. That’s not the case. According to frontman John Darnielle, he hasn’t had some sort of ’spiritual awakening’, but merely wrote these 12 songs based on “twelve hard lessons” the Bible taught him. Interesting. In fact, the album is a No Preach Zone, with the few Biblical references coming across both subtle and poignant.
Being familiar with TMG’s previous work, I can say The Life Of The World To Come is good. Just good. It’s simple and stripped down. Apart from it’s Biblical skeleton however, it doesn’t push boundaries the way previous albums did. There’s minimal trademark raw-emotion. Minimal fuss. Minimal effort. It’s just… good. Perhaps only 3 out of the 12 tracks actually stand out. One thing that remains constant though, is John Darnielle’s beautiful lyrical abilities, even if this album isn’t a display of his finest poetry.
If you’ve heard The Mountain Goats before, you’ll probably think it’s good too. However, for a first time listener it may possibly be construed as bland. Admittedly, The Life Of The World To Come lacks the seasoning evident elsewhere in their extensive discography. For a first time listener, I’d possibly skip this album and go back to the bitter brilliance that I started with; The Sunset Tree (2005) or even the beautifully resonant Get Lonely (2006). But while we’re here, take a listen to one of the stand-out tracks and judge this new offering for yourself…
Other http:// Website • Last.fm
MP3 ♫ The Mountain Goats - 1 John 4:16