Listening Post: The Mountain Goats – The Life of the World to Come

The Mountain Goats – The Life of the World to Come – 2009

I’ve been listening to the 27 part Yale lecture series on the Civil War which I downloaded from iTunes. The lecturer, David Blight, is an expert on the subject and suggests a series of corollary works to read alongside the class.
I am NOT going to do that.
I’m just going to enjoy the lecture and learn what I can.
This is the same approach I am taking to the new Mountain Goats album. Why does it matter? Because every song is named after a passage of the bible and I have no intention of looking them up and figuring out how they relate to the subject matter.
I think that’s a little too much work, truly.
This is also the first Mountain Goats that I am really not that interested in recommending. Why? Well, to be honest, it’s a little petty. The lead single track, Genesis, was so evocative, the perfect little MG ditty that I was so excited to hear the next collection of songs after the brilliance of Heretic Pride.
But that was not the case. The rest of the songs are so quiet, intimate, difficult to penetrate, that I kind of feel like someone said, “Hey, John, we need a single.” And we were given a track that could have been on the previous record.
Look, this is standard issue Mountain Goats. The songcraft is there, the topic matter is there. Its just that this is the first time that I feel like it’s a yawn. We’ve been here before.
Still, there are haunting moments of Goats-ian brilliance. But this isn’t an essential Darnielle record in the least.

Grade: B
ASide: Genesis 3:23
BlindSide: Psalms 40:2, Hebrews, 11:40
DownSide: Matthew 25:21