Review: The Mountain Goats – The Life of the World to Come
The Mountain Goats - The Life of the World to Come (2009) [4AD] // Grade: C+
Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how long a band has been around and making music. The Mountain Goats are a group I consistently think of as a “new” act, but between their early days of cassettes and 7″s and their post-2002 catalog of releases on 4AD, the band has a staggering 17 albums to their credit and have been recording since I was in grade school. The Mountain Goat’s newest, The Life of the World to Come, further establishes lead John Darnielle’s prowess as a great American storyteller, projecting highly literate, personal tales from a Biblical vantage point.
Stylistically, I much prefer the early, raw-edged lo-fi recordings of The Mountain Goats. I realize that era has long ago been shelved, so I try to appreciate the band for what they are best at these days, storytelling. The Life of the World to Come consists of a track list of Bible verses that provide the framework for Darnielle to relay, “twelve hard lessons the Bible taught me, kind of”. A few of the tracks, including “Isaiah 45:23″ feign Christian rock, but The Life of the World to Come is not the work of musicians out to convert fans to Sunday church attendance. Underneath the gentle, intimate guitar work that ties the album together lie dark tales of junkies, lives cut short and failed saviors.
The Life of the World to Come is an album that could easily be translated to printed word. I often feel that I’d rather read the work of The Mountain Goats than listen, and this album elicits those feelings tenfold. The instrumental melodies frequently seem asides to Darnielle’s lyrical musings, and with its all-encompassing thematic tie-ins to the Good Book, The Life of the World to Come verges on heavy-handed intellectualism. When Darnielle steps back and lets his bandmates kick up the instrumentation a notch, his stories are transformed from rambling to memorable. The bright indie-rock styled “Genesis 3:23″ sticks in my head far after it’s closing bar and illustrates the ideal balance at which The Mountain Goats’ material is its most successful.
While I’m not really a fan of the sound of The Life of the World to Come, nor any of The Mountain Goats releases of the past few years, John Darnielle’s storytelling abilities are undeniable, and amidst a Biblical backdrop, intensely personal, moving and emotive.
