Sometimes all you need is a pastoral about an imaginary cult. A quiet idyll about the charismatic movement when it's become less charismatic, when you're not even desperate to get

Sometimes all you need is a pastoral about an imaginary cult. A quiet idyll about the charismatic movement when it's become less charismatic, when you're not even desperate to get away, it's just a minor irritation of your day. That's in a sense when a cult really dies, isn't it?

It's appropriate to have a song that sounds like it's been unearthed, from a band that John was in rather than strictly speaking the Mountain Goats, about a Weekly World

It's appropriate to have a song that sounds like it's been unearthed, from a band that John was in rather than strictly speaking the Mountain Goats, about a Weekly World News story of a man discovering Goliath's skull. The This Year notes even give us a pretty good idea of

One of the joys of the Mountain Goats, especially in their collaborations, is their ability to write songs about things nobody has covered before. There's so many songs that everyone's

One of the joys of the Mountain Goats, especially in their collaborations, is their ability to write songs about things nobody has covered before. There's so many songs that everyone's done. But which other band is going to give you an inside look on the ennui suffered by the workers

I realised I was a day ahead just after listening to this, but I figured I'd comment on it anyway. This is (in a complimentary way) simultaneously the most Nick

I realised I was a day ahead just after listening to this, but I figured I'd comment on it anyway. This is (in a complimentary way) simultaneously the most Nick Drake and the most Smashing Pumpkins I've heard Mountain Goats sound. This is a sing that makes sense in the

There's something oppressive about this one, a feeling like the instruments are too loud and too close and too much. It fits the subject matter incredibly well. And also means

There's something oppressive about this one, a feeling like the instruments are too loud and too close and too much. It fits the subject matter incredibly well. And also means that this is a hard one to write about. It's been a lot of week, and I need the music

An unexpected voice on this one. I haven't heard Kaki King before, and that's fairly obviously an oversight and one I'll have to correct. This, to me, is a song

An unexpected voice on this one. I haven't heard Kaki King before, and that's fairly obviously an oversight and one I'll have to correct. This, to me, is a song about the wrong kind of peace. The sort that's a respite between moments of pain, not an end to pain.

Back to heresy again for a while. What's interesting is that if you'd played this song to me without me seeing the cover and asked me to guess what album

Back to heresy again for a while. What's interesting is that if you'd played this song to me without me seeing the cover and asked me to guess what album it was from, I would definitely have guessed The Sunset Tree. It has that album's sense of yearning, of need.

Sometimes John Darnielle's songs are complex and multilayered, sometime beautiful in their simplicity. This is a sing about what it must feel like for Toad when mario shows up and

Sometimes John Darnielle's songs are complex and multilayered, sometime beautiful in their simplicity. This is a sing about what it must feel like for Toad when mario shows up and kicks ass, what else is there to say?

Most of the songs in This Year are Mountain Goats alone, or something calling itself Mountain Goats when it's John and miscellaneous other people. There aren't many (although there's a

Most of the songs in This Year are Mountain Goats alone, or something calling itself Mountain Goats when it's John and miscellaneous other people. There aren't many (although there's a couple) that are full collaborations. The first thing to note about this song is how fucking great the guitar is.

It's tough to know where to start with this song. It's one you feel more than hear, and one you experience emotionally. I get hit by a wave of sad

It's tough to know where to start with this song. It's one you feel more than hear, and one you experience emotionally. I get hit by a wave of sad and happy nostalgia when I hear it, as if something had happened and it was right that it had happened,

Appropriately for a track on Satanic Messiah this isn't a song about satan or anger or anything similar, but is instead a sing about a different kind of universal experience:

Appropriately for a track on Satanic Messiah this isn't a song about satan or anger or anything similar, but is instead a sing about a different kind of universal experience: the gig that is about to change your life. The room and the people where music is about to change

If you were to map out all of the Mountain Goats discography on a piece of paper, or a 3d display, or some other way of doing such an obviously

If you were to map out all of the Mountain Goats discography on a piece of paper, or a 3d display, or some other way of doing such an obviously absurd thing, and on that map or whatever you found Up The Wolves and then you found Training Montage, Wizard

The title track of this album is a great short work of fiction about zealotry and faith and standing for what's right even when the world says you're wrong. It's

The title track of this album is a great short work of fiction about zealotry and faith and standing for what's right even when the world says you're wrong. It's also a great short work of fiction about why those things I just said aren't necessarily always positive. This is

Well, I wrote an entire post for this and the blog ate it. Lost forever, like a sea monster in a Chinese lake.

Well, I wrote an entire post for this and the blog ate it. Lost forever, like a sea monster in a Chinese lake.

Nobody writes a musical obituary like John Darnielle. He has a particular gift for the last moments, for the codas of lives that end up defining or describing them exactly.

Nobody writes a musical obituary like John Darnielle. He has a particular gift for the last moments, for the codas of lives that end up defining or describing them exactly. I'll admit to being unfamiliar with the work of Prince Far I before this, clearly my loss. But I'm aware

Paranoia has a sound. It's something close and noisy and dark and warm. It's too many things too close that you can't see until you bump into them. it's unexpected

Paranoia has a sound. It's something close and noisy and dark and warm. It's too many things too close that you can't see until you bump into them. it's unexpected strings and a voice going from singing to screaming so slowly that you can't say exactly when the change happens.

In the middle period of the Mountain Goats (and it's July, we're well into that) there are a couple of overarching themes that it's worth observing. The songs are more

In the middle period of the Mountain Goats (and it's July, we're well into that) there are a couple of overarching themes that it's worth observing. The songs are more confessional biographically, but they're also often much more nakedly emotional whether what is being talked about is directly an incident

All right, let's be heretics. This song could not be more different from the previous album. Huge, bombastic, drums like gunshots, soaring strings, and a narrative about the focal role

All right, let's be heretics. This song could not be more different from the previous album. Huge, bombastic, drums like gunshots, soaring strings, and a narrative about the focal role of the killer in a slasher film. I love a good villain. And my definition of good villain is very

An interesting, although perhaps inevitable - thing about this album full of songs about loneliness: they're all first person. John's songs tend to be first person anyway, especially the ones

An interesting, although perhaps inevitable - thing about this album full of songs about loneliness: they're all first person. John's songs tend to be first person anyway, especially the ones that are to a degree autobiographical, but it strikes me listening to this one that it would be even more

After several days of solitude songs where the loneliness was the absence of a specific other, we come back to one where the absence is of... everyone. Alone not in

After several days of solitude songs where the loneliness was the absence of a specific other, we come back to one where the absence is of... everyone. Alone not in the crowd but in its absence. It's impossible to say if this is a better or worse loneliness but it