Record Review: Mountain Goats "Heretic Pride"

Mountain Goats
Heretic Pride








John Darnielle has supposedly made 17 CD’s under the the guise of The Mountaingoats since 1991. He is almost as prodigious as Ryan Adams and of late he has been a lot more interesting to listen to. His CD’s have always had a decidedly low-fi feel with classics such as “The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out Of Denton” which makes you laugh and cry as he sings their ballad with the chorus...”Hail Satan” sung in a half hearted, decidedly un-deathmetal way. Darnelle’s sturm and twang has been the voice and the sound of the group much as Bright Eyes serve Connor Oberst, Built To Spill serve Doug Martsch and The Decembrists serve Colin MeLoy. As I said he is always interesting to listen to but the production has always masked (or protected us) from his voice. Before the current Heretic Pride he sounded more like a Will Oldham whining, ranting style then anything else but on the recent CD we can hear all the lyrics and... who knew? Darnelle can sing. In a couple of different styles.

This is a really good solid mope rocking indie CD with some great songs. The use (over use) of the cello strikes oddly first... but then it starts to sound beautiful, mournful and... brilliant. Eric Friedlander who has played with a lot of people but does a lot with saxophonist Pete Zorn is just impeccable in this lightly orchestrated love letter of angst. Along with multi instrumentalist Annie Clark (sometimes of Sufjan Stevens fame) there is a lot of talent on this CD.

The first four songs get better with each listen. The Guardian praised the album as getting more interesting on every listen and I beg to agree. I hate to be such a fan but this is the best thing the guy has done and he is very talented.
The rack listing is as follows:

1. "Sax Rohmer #1" - 3:41
2. "San Bernardino" - 3:19
3. "Heretic Pride" - 3:43
4. "Autoclave" - 3:34
5. "New Zion" - 2:55
6. "So Desperate" 3:21
7. "In the Craters on the Moon" 3:32
8. "Lovecraft in Brooklyn" - 3:49
9. "Tianchi Lake" - 3:20
10. "How to Embrace a Swamp Creature" - 3:27
11. "Marduk T-Shirt Men's Room Incident" - 3:21
12. "Sept 15 1983" - 3:43
13. "Michael Myers Resplendent" - 2:52

“Sax Rohmer” is a great start which goes into “San Bernadino” which is just a pretty wistful song full of cello regret (I am thinking about registering this term) and... well I love it.The title cut is just too much and it comes third. “The transfiguration’s gonna come for me at last / and I will burn hotter than the sun,” he sings; “I will be so proud when the reckoning arrives.” For a drop dead nice essay on this song go to:

http://prettyfakes.com/?p=1298

My favorite song is Autoclave. How pretentious and obnoxious can one snobby indie rocker be?

“I am this great, unstable mass of blood and foam
And no one in her right mind would make her home my home
My heart’s an autoclave
My heart’s an autoclave”

I guess when your a pretentious indie boy there are no limits and you also have an obligation to extend your listeners vocabulary.

So not only is he an unstable mass of blood and foam... but his heart is an autoclave. Wikipedia tells us that an Autoclave is:

“a pressurized device designed to heat aqueous solutions above their boiling point to achieve sterilization. It was invented by Charles Chamberland in 1879.[1] The term autoclave is also used to describe an industrial machine in which elevated temperature and pressure are used in processing materials.”
Dude, that is his heart he is talking about.

One of the best critically reviewed songs on the Cd has been “Love Craft In Brooklyn”. Talk about angst. I will let his lyrics speak for themselves.

“...woke up afraid of my own shadow
Like, Genuinely afraid
headed for the pawnshop
To buy myself a switchblade
Someday somethings coming
From way out beyond the stars
To kill us while we stand here
It will store our brains in mason jar
And then the girl behind the counter asks "How do you feel today?" and I say "I feel like Lovecraft in Brooklyn!"
So at least he is a happy guy. This is no Vampire Weekend. This is a crafted CD, well instrumented and a beautiful mix of words and lyrics. This is, despite my condescending tone, a CD you absolutely should buy. So sayeth the Diner Review. 9 Slingers on the 10 scale,