#288

Album Week, 2022, Day Six: Mountain Goats Day.

The Reckoning.

Literally, as no less than four (or, alternately reckoned, seven) new (or, to reckon alternatively, three) instances of Mountain Goats music have dropped since Album Week 2019: Three full-length albums of new music and four discs worth of extemporaneous recordings. This is the sort of embarrassment of riches which stands as evidence for the infinite love of the Almighty. 

So! No need for further chatter. Let us reconnoiter these brave new sonic landscapes.

Songs for Pierre Chauvin

This album is an answered prayer in many ways. I'm not one of those purists that only wants and only recognizes JD alone with a boombox as the best and truest form of MG music, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hold a particularly exalted place on the altar of my heart. In addition, the subject matter itself is Classic. And when John writes about the Classics, I am happy. So this love letter specifically to me at the start of a pandemic felt like a kiss on the forehead, a sacramental blessing, a sign that even if nothing was ever going to be okay again and I was shortly to die of lung failure or revolutionary bullet or fiery nuclear holocaust, at least I'd blasted "Until Olympius Returns" as loud as I could from the speakers of a car, singing along in wild abandon. At least I'd heard new music in these old ways once more in my lucky, lucky lifetime. And dear Lord, if every single song isn't a triumph and a wonder and a beautiful missive. Also this album makes me think of a dear friend whom I haven't seen in too long, and that salt-tear-flavored feeling is always wonderful in music.

We're gonna do it like this: scores out of twenty per track, letter score for the album afterwards. I'd like to write at length about each one, each album, but come on. We all have places to be. A short commentary along the lines of one long sentence or three short ones may sometimes be appropriate; I shall use my discretion.

1. "Aulon Raid": 19/20. 

Beautiful song. Warm welcome. Swelling feeling in the breast. 

2. "Until Olympius Returns": 20/20

Hymn to clench your jaw to. Anthem to survive by.

3. "Last Gasp at Calama": 17/20

4. "For the Snakes" 17/20

5. "The Wooded Hills Along the Black Sea" 20/20

God Damn this song hurts so good. I mean fuck. Wow. 

6. "January 31, 438" 18/20

7. "Hopeful Assassins of Zeno" 19/20

8. "Their Gods Do Not Have Surgeons" 17/20

9. "Going to Lebanon 2" 20/20

"Going to Lebanon" is a personal favorite, so there is bias, but worth mention anyway: lyrically subtle yet significantly intertwined with the first, and a chorus of astonishing beauty and musicality.

10. "Exegetic Chains" 19/20

Songs for Pierre Chauvin: A+

Getting Into Knives

Getting into knives, are we? You know, I'm somewhat into knives as well. Yes indeed. It's a smooth one, even smoother than In League With Dragons. For some, the increasing smoothness and evenness of the albums are a sonic problem, but I think the grain is present always--it just don't hit the same. I don't know what the fuck people are talking about when they talk about accessibility as it relates to music, but people have complained that the albums have become less interesting and lower quality as they become more accessible. To me in personal conversations, anyway; haven't read the internet about it. Probably their recently attained powers of famousness play a role, which I can understand perfectly. Things being too famous is a huge turnoff in general. In this case, well, iconoclast I may be, but sometimes, fame just don't bug me. They can get as famous as they want, fuck it, I'm still here for it. The distaste that accompanies excessive fame can be ameliorated by never reading the comments on anything, getting off social media entirely, and only talking to the same twenty people ever--sparingly. I am capable of stomaching serious discussion on the music of The Mountain Goats with a grand crowning total of two human beings on this planet and don't want or look for more. People just say the same boring shit they read online, it's incredible; a whole society of trained parrots. At any rate while there is a certain quietus over the album and a high degree of polish and control, here lie some of the most interesting and addictive songs they've made. If there is a problem, I have to look for one, and find it only in that maybe some of the songs are a skosh long. So big whoop! I'm into these knives. These knives!

1. "Corsican Mastiff Stride": 20/20

The shortest song on the album and one of the three most perfect. Yeah! 

2. "Get Famous": 16/20

3. "Picture of My Dress": 17/20

4. "As Many Candles As Possible": 17/20

5. "Tidal Wave": 17/20

6. "Pez Dorado": 19/20

7. "The Last Place I Saw You Alive": 19/20

8. "Bell Swamp Connection": 16/20

9. "The Great Gold Sheep": 20/20

Maybe the best song on the album; hearkens to the compositional families of some of the best songs on All Eternals Deck and Moon Colony Bloodbath, which are some of the best ever. In the history of all songs.

10. "Rat Queen": 20/20

Just awesome. Such guitars!

11. "Wolf Count": 19/20

12. "Harbor Me": 17/20

13. "Getting Into Knives": 16/20

 Getting Into Knives: A-

Dark In Here

It's all still rather new, so I don't have a ton to verbalize, but this record has some of the greatest instrumentals of any Mountain Goats release ever. It's an amazing album. Fucking incredible. So many perfect songs. So much unprecedented ground explored with such unerring confidence. So much raw power under such tight control.

1. "Parisian Enclave": 20/20

2. "The Destruction of the Kola Superdeep Borehole Tower": 20/20

3. "Mobile": 17/20

4. "Dark In Here": 20/20

5. "Lizard Suit": 20/20

6. "When a Powerful Animal Comes": 20/20

7. "To the Headless Horseman": 17/20

8. "The New Hydra Collection": 18/20

9. "The Slow Parts on Death Metal Albums": 20/20

10. "Before I Got There": 20/20

11. "Arguing with the Ghost of Peter Laughner About His Coney Island Baby Review": 18/20

12. "Let Me Bathe in Demonic Light": 19/20

Dark In Here: A+

The Jordan Lake Sessions 1, 2, 3, and 4

Fancy live recordings! Well, it's easier to get a real clean balanced sound when there's no giant room full of noisy people to account for. What can one really say about them except that they are, by and large pretty juicy and good? There are standouts and semi-disappointments, rediscoveries and rarities, small pleasures and meaningless frustrations. It's good stuff, worth making, worth having. I give it all an A. 

*

Some may ask themselves: is there any Mountain Goats effort you would not give an A to, Mr. Lidd, and therefore, is not your rambling basically useless? The answer is no, and who cares.

Album Week 2022 Mountain Goats concludes! Woop woop! I'll probably do a non-Album Week post in between this and the finale, just so's you'd know, if you were wondering.

--JL