The Mountain Goats Album: “The Sunset Tree [Digipak]”

I consider this the best release of the year, which is all the more surprising since I am not particularly fond of the Mountain Goats previous work. John Darnielle has written far and away the best lyrics of any disc this year. The tunes are not always up to the stories, but the images his songs present and the emotions they evoke are phenomenal. John Darnielle does not have a particularly great voice either, in fact some may find it almost grating, but he has the best delivery I have ever heard. "This Year' is the standout song on the disc. Never has a song presented the feeling of being a disillusioned teen so well. The chorus "I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me." will resound in your ears. It is a song that the worst of us singers want to scream along with as it blasts out of our car radios. "locking eyes, holding hands twin high maintenance machines." I love that line. "The scene ends badly as you might imagine in a cavalcade of anger and fear." Is followed by "There will be feasting and dancing in Jeruselum next year." He Juxtaposes images of dread with hope. It's brilliant stuff. Some of his images are admittedly difficult to grasp. But there is hope amidst despair throughout this brilliant tale. Old fans may find this disc overproduced, but i heartily disagree. Every string and keyboard is gorgeous. Check out the strings on "Dilaudid". They evoke the feeling of a deep despair and self destruction like a simpler production could never achieve. Enough said. If you have not yet heard this disc buy it now.

At a live show John Darnielle (who, despite his objections to such statements, IS the Mountain Goats) once told a story about being in an interview in Germany where he was trying to say something about one of his songs was questioned by the interviewer who said "Yes, well maybe, but you are famous liar!"

This idea rises from the fact that through the dozen or so Mountain Goats records that have proceeded Sunset Tree John Darnielle has created an entire emotional universe populated with fictional characters, fictional travels and historicaly based fictional stories all injected with heavy doses of genuine and real emotion.

So how excited was I when i heard that the new MG album was going to be based not off fictional characters but off of Darnielle's own life growing up in Southern california with an abusive step father.

I did wonder if he would be able to maintain the kind of emotional subjectivity that made his early songs so enjoyable. Confesionalist whining has its place and in my mind it is not in a mountain goats song.

How pleased was I when i finally got my hot little hands on this album and found that John Darnielle was able to treat his own dark moments with the kind of emotional honesty and humor that made albums like "All Hail west Texas" and "Tallahassee" the great albums they were.

As mentioned in the other review this is the third album where John has utilized multipl instruments, a big departure from his original one-dude-with-one-guitar set up. Even though it would be impossible to call this new incarnation low-fi there is something very elemental about it that holds true to the low fi ideal of shunning over production. For example the song "Dilaudid" consists of only Darnielle's nasal lyrics and a string section. It is both beautiful and primal.

There are lulls in the album as there have been with the last two studio albums. these lulls however fall between some of the greater pop songs I have heard this year. "Dance Music" instantly cimbed to the top of my favorite pop song list and other songs like "This Year" and "Broom "People" have the same hope-in-the-face-of-utter-hopelessness quality that makes all Mountain Goats albums the emotional treasure troves they are.

I won't go on and on but definitely download the few free songs linked to on Amazon, definitely go out and by the album and if you really wan to experience the Mountain Goats, go and see them live. You will not forget the experience soon.

To read my over all write up of the Mountain goats go to:

http://thedailykirk.blogs.com/the_daily_kirk/2005/04/the_mountain_go.html

So I posted a review of the vinyl version of the Mountain Goats album, Tallahassee, and pretty much it is the same thing here...

...this album can only get better when you listen to it on vinyl. I recently got it and not only is the guitar crisper, the mix just sounds so much clearer.

The album is made up of songs and stories from John's childhood, a lot of them focusing on his abusive step-father. This is nothing but an album of hope and dreams, and bumps along the way.

Although there are songs of anger and resentment, the album ends with a song about spending a day with his step-father, not mean, not judgmental, just a day. It was not bad, and signifying that not all moments are bad, there is hope, and even when people do bad things, there is the capability of love and forgiveness there within us. Sometimes people do bad things because that is all that they know, and sometimes they do not want to do them, but still do from time to time.

One of the best albums of indie rock.

This is the first Mountain Goats album I've ever picked up. Every song on the recording is excellent and particularly the lyrics are fantastic. I was amazed that anyone could write a song titled "Hast thou considered the tetrapod" and make it not only work, but seem like the most pertinent metaphor for escaping a hellish situation. And that was just one of the songs. "Up the wolves" employs anther metaphor which blew my mind once I actually got what John Darnielle, the singer, songwriter, etc. etc., was saying. With so many great songs, I thought I have a hard time picking a favorite, but "Love, love, love" is easily in the top spot with "Song for Dennis Brown" close behind. I laughed like a goon the first time I heard both songs and they still make me laugh even though they are such downers. That's Darnielle's magic - taking the tragic and brutal and disarming it beautifully. The lyrical quality is complemented by first-rate music as well. Darnielle is good but Friedlander on cello is an unusual accompanyist, but it works really well, especially on the cello-heavy songs like "Dilaudid."

If you have never heard of this band and you enjoy a healthy round of gallows humor - pick it up. You will not regret purchasing this album sight unseen.

I'm new to this 'Aggressively seek out every good album that comes out' thing. Thus, I'd never heard of Darnielle before, even though he apparently has a huge indie rep. Apparently he was popular among hipster crowds for recording his first few albums on a tape recorder. And although he records in a studio now, his music still mostly carries the indie staple of having simple guitar rythyms crafted to focus your attention to the melodic vocals. All the songs are uptempo and hold your attention from beginning to end, making The Sunset Tree one of the most engaging albums of the year.

The songs are mostly autobiographical and deeply emotional, about being abused by his stepfather on his childhood. The approach to said abuse is explicit, but manages to be inspirational instead of whiny. Written on the album sleeve is: "Dedicated to any young men and women anywhere who live with people who abuse them, with the following good news: you are going to make it out of there alive." The lyrics come at you so fast that sometimes it's hard to decode them, but among those that you do decode are 'I am going to make it through this year if it kills me'. The best track on the album is probably 'Dance Music', in which he recounts running upstairs and listening to dance music when he stepfather is yelling at and throwing whiskey bottles at his mother.

The message of the album does come across, not to let a bad situation destroy you. And the music is strong enough that anyone who likes indie rock should like this album.